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VENICE AND VENETIA 



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VENICE AND VENETIA 



BY 

EDWARD HUTTON 

AUTHOR OF " THE CITIES OF UMBRIA," ETC. 



WITH FOURTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR BY 

MAXWELL ARMFIELD 

AND TWELVE OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS 



NEW YORK 

THE MAGMILLAN COMPANY 

1911 



f ^ 



r 

N 



TO 
C. H. AND E. A. A. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 



PAGE 



I. VENETIA AND VENICE ..... 1 

II. S. MARK'S ...... 42 

III. THE doge's palace . . • • > ^7 

IV. PIAZZA DI S. MARCO .... 84. 
V. SESTIERE DI CASTELLO . • -94 

VI. SESTIERE DI S. MARCO . . . . 105 

VII. SESTIERE DI CANNAREGIO . . . .1X6 

VIII. SESTIERI DI S. CROCE AND S. POLO . . 127 

IX. SESTIERE DI DORSODURO .... 140 

X. THE ACADEMY ..... 14^^ 

XI. THE ISLANDS OF THE GIUDECCA AND S. GIORGIO 

MAGGIORE . . . . . .167 

XII. THE LIDO, S. LAZZARO, S. SERVOLO, AND S. ELENA 176 

XIII. THE ISLANDS OF S. MICHELE AND MURANO . 187 



viii VENICE AND VENETIA 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XIV. THE ISLANDS OF BURANO, TORCELLO, AND S. 

FRANCESCO DEL DESERTO . f^ . . I99 

XV. TO CHIOGGIA . . . . . . 209 

XVI. TO TREVISO . . . . . 2lS 

XVII. CASTELFRANCO AND BASSANO . . . 23O 

XVIII. PADUA . . . . , . . . 242 

XIX. TWO POETS AND THE EUGANEAN HILLS . . 264 

XX. VICENZA . . . . . . 274 

XXI. VERONA . . . . . . 284 

INDEX ...... 309 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



IN COLOUR 

OUTSIDE THE WALLS, PADOVA 

TORCELLO FROM BURANO . 

S. MARIA DELLA SALUTE, VENICE 

S. mark's, VENICE . . . . 

THE PIAZZETTA, VENICE 

THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE 

THE GESUATI, VENICE . 

S. GIORGIO, VENICE 

THE EUGANEAN HILLS 

TORCELLO . . . . . 

PALAZZO EZZELINO BALBO, PADUA 

VICENZA . . . . . 

▼ERONA . 

THE CLOISTER OF THE DUOMO, VERONA 

ix 



Frontispieu 

FACING PAGS 
12 

. 38 

58 

. 84 

106 

. 144 

. 182 
206 

242 

274 

. 284 

302* 



/ 



VENICE AND VENETIA 



IN MONOTONE 



FACING 



PROCESSION OF THE HOLY CROSS .... 

By Gentile Bellini, in the Accademia, Venice 
(Photo : Brogi) 

THE RAPE OF EUROPA ..... 78 

By Paul Veronese, in the Doge's Palace, Venice 
(Photo : Alinari) 

MADONNA ENTHRONED WITH SAINTS . . .96 

By Giovanni Bellini, in the Church of S. Zaccaria 
(Photo : Anderson) 

MADONNA ENTHRONED . . . . . I02 

By Antonio da Negroponte, in the Church of S. Francesco della Vigna 
(Photo: Anderson) 

THE SOLDIER AND THE GIPSY . . . .122 

By Giorgione, in the Palazzo Giovaneili, Venice 
(Photo : Alinari) 

CLEOPATRA . . . . . . . I26 

By Tiepolo, in the Palazzo Labbia, Venice 
(Photo : Anderson) 

THE PESARO FAMILY, DETAIL FROM THE MADONNA DEL 

PESARO ...... 136 

By Titian, in the Frari, Venice 
(Photo : Anderson) 

THE ENGLISH AMBASSADORS ASKING FOR THE HAND OF 

S. URSULA . . . . . .156 

By Carpaccio, in the Accademia, Venice 
(Photo : Alinari) 

BACCHUS AND ARIADNE ..... 164 

By Tintoretto, in the Doge's Palace, Venice 
(Photo : Alinari) 

MARTYRDOM OF S. CRISTOFORO .... 256 

By Andrea Mantegna, in the Eremitani, Padua 
(Photo : Anderson) 

FIVE SAINTS ....... 280 

By Montagna, in the Church of S. Corona, Vicenza 
(Photo : Anderson) 

ST. GEORGE AND THE PRINCESS . . . . 298 

By Pisanello, in the Church of S. Anastasia, Verona 
(Photo : Anderson) 



VENICE AND VENETIA 



VENICE AND VENETIA 



VENETIA AND VENICE 

THE traveller who, on his way to Italy from the North, 
should have the patience, perseverance, or curiosity 
to cross the great mountains on foot, or at least by road, 
whether he attempt them by the Mont Cenis, the Simplon, 
the S. Gotthard, the Spliigen, or the Brenner, will find 
stretched out before him as far as the eye can reach a vast 
green plain in which he will see the distant glitter of many fair 
cities. This plain in his first joy he takes to be Italy ; in fact, 
it is Cisalpine Gaul. Yet he is partly right in his enthusiasm, 
for this great plain, so tremendously defended on the north 
and the west against the Germanics, is indeed much more 
Latin in its history and civilization than Gallic or Teutonic, 
but it is separated from Italy by a very considerable bastion 
— the bastion of the Apennines, though it may not be com- 
pared with that which defends it from the Germanics. 

This vast plain thus separated from the world on the north, 
the west, and the south, is guarded on the east by the sea. 
From west to east it is divided into two not unequal parts by 
a great river, the Po. South of the Po, between the river and 
the Apennines, it is divided superficially into numerous 
districts of no great extent by many rivers, not one of which 

B I 



2 VENICE AND VENETIA 

is of any great importance, and all of which are tributaries of 
the Po. But with these provinces to the south of the great 
river, under the shadow as it were of the Apennines, and so 
with but one by no means impassable barrier between them 
and Italy proper, it is not my purpose to deal in this book. 
They early came for the most part under Italian influence, 
and are to this day the more Italian parts of the great plain. 
Our business lies with that part of this vast plain which lies to 
the north of the Po between it and the great mountains, and 
with but a part of that, the eastern part. 

For the great plain to the north of the Po, defended by 
that river on the south, by the Alps on the north and west, 
and on the east by the sea, is in itself naturally divided into 
two parts by the Lake of Garda and the Mincio, which runs 
out of it into the Po. The province, which lies to the west of 
the Mincio, which we call Lombardy, whose capital from time 
immemorial has been Milan, has always been separate from 
the district which lies to the east of the Mincio, which we 
call Venetia, as did the Romans. This last and eastern 
province, unlike the others which all together form the whole 
vast plain, guarded on three sides by the mountains and on 
the fourth by the sea, never made a real part of Cisalpine 
Gaul. It was outside the great command which Caesar held 
when he crossed the Rubicon to conquer Italy, and save on 
its north-eastern frontier it possessed then the same frontiers 
as it does to-day, when its boundaries are the Mincio, the Po 
to its mouth, the Adriatic to the Austrian frontier on this side 
the Isonzo, and the Julian, Carnic, Dolomitic, and Rhaetian 
Alps. 

Venetia, the Veneto, the green plain thus enclosed and 
defended by nature, is, and has been for many ages, itself 
divided into districts or provinces : to wit, Venezia proper, the 
Friuli, the Marches of Treviso, the Polesine, the Padovano, 
and the Veronese ; but such divisions were to a large extent 
merely political, Venetia being divided by nature into but 
three main parts — the mountains, the plain, and the lagoons; 
It is with the two latter parts we propose to deal. Now as 



VENETIA AND VENICE 3 

the mountains made the rivers, so the rivers rising in the 
mountains made the plain, and in their confluence with the 
sea the lagoons. 

In looking at any map of the physical configuration of 
Europe it will be seen how the mountains roll up slowly out 
of the plain of the Germanics till they break in a great crested 
wave upon this Italian shore. The steepness of this wave, the 
suddenness of its breaking, have this consequence, that the 
rivers which flow southward from it are everywhere rapid in the 
mountains or immediately under them, as at Verona, but the 
plain breaks their onslaught so that very soon as at Mantua 
they become sluggish and spread out into vast marshes, and 
indeed it is only the tireless energy of man that prevents them 
now as in the past from turning the whole plain into an 
incredible morass. Yet to this onslaught of the rivers — and 
all have much the same character, the Po, the Mincio, the 
Brenta, the Adige, and the Piave — we owe the whole character 
of the plain not only for evil but for good also. For these 
rapid and torrential streams brought to the plains a wealth of 
soil unknown in any other part of Italy, and the continual 
danger, the necessity for a tireless war against nature, bred a 
hardy and industrious people. There is something else, too; 
though spiritual as it is and not material, it will appeal less to 
the thought of our time. The rivers which thus formed the 
plain and gave so sturdy a character to the inhabitants, all 
flowed eastward into the Adriatic, and thus the cities which 
were built there beside them were forced to look eastward too. 
In the terrible revolutions in which the Western Empire fell 
this fact has a spiritual importance that it is impossible to 
exaggerate. 

If the mountains and the rivers made the plain and gave it 
its character, the rivers and the sea formed that other essential 
part of the Veneto, I mean the lagoons, those vast and 
mysterious lakes of tidal water separated from the Adriatic by 
long and narrow stretches of sand dunes which we call lidi. 
For as the rivers grew weary and sluggish in the immensity of 
the plain, so when they met the sea they had no energy to 



4 VENICE AND VENETIA 

battle with it but spread out in deltas ; and the tide, slowly 
swirling round the great gulf from east to west, meeting the 
rivers one by one, heaped up their alluvial soil in those long 
bars, which were broken here and there by the tide and the 
storm, so that they formed infinitely long and narrow islands, 
almost enclosing great sheets of water, mixed of salt and fresh, 
and dotted with smaller islands, which, as we might suppose, 
were more continuous towards the mainland, where the force 
of the tide, out of its main channel there, was less, and the 
water fresher, a mere flood, in fact, from the rivers, which might 
seem to have lost their way upon that vague and desolate coast. 
These lagoons with their innumerable islands stretch from the 
mouth of the Isonzo on the north to the mouth of the Po on 
the south, forming a vague and mysterious world between sea 
and shore. Only one of them, however, was to win any 
importance in history — the lagoon of Venice, which has had so 
great an influence upon the world. This lagoon is set some- 
what nearer to the mouth of the Po than to the mouth of the 
Isonzo in the deepest bend of that concave shore. Guarded 
on the north by the now canalized Piave, and on the south by 
the canalized Brenta, on the west by an impassable marsh, 
and on the east by the lidi and the sea, it is some hundred 
and sixty square miles in extent, thirty-five miles long, and at 
its greatest some seven miles wide. It too is set with in- 
numerable islands, the chief of which formed the foundation 
of the city of Venice, in the midst of the lagoon guarded on all 
sides by miles of shallow water. 

Such is the threefold character of Venetia when we first 
come upon it, in the writings of Strabo, as a province of 
Rome. It was then peopled, so far as the mainland was 
concerned, for the lagoons were but vaguely inhabited, by the 
Heneti or Veneti, a race of which we know nothing but who 
seem to have been immigrants from Asia Minor. The Heneti 
came to be threatened by the Gauls of the middle and upper 
valley of the Po, and their entry into Roman civilization and 
government seems to have been made for the sake of protec- 
tion against these tribes. They sent assistance to the Roman 



VENETIA AND VENICE 5 

armies in their expedition against the Gauls, and were eventu- 
ally absorbed into that vast Empire we still regret which it will 
be the noblest business of mankind to build again. 

There followed, as might be expected, a period of prosperity 
for Venetia such as it has scarcely known since. Not only 
was the vast agricultural wealth of the province developed^ but 
great and rich cities arose within its borders. Thus Padua 
was born and Treviso, Verona arose and Vicenza, Aquileia 
flourished, which now is nothing — a village of a thousand in- 
habitants ; — while great ports were opened along that vague 
coast : Adria, Altinum, Grado, and Ravenna ; and the im- 
perishable roads of Rome thrust their way across the mountains 
and through the marshes and over the plains bearing her 
armies, and behind her arms the wealth, the civiUzation, the 
order, the art of the world. Padua was so rich that in the 
time of Augustus it was called the richest city in Upper Italy ; 
in Sermione Catullus sang in exile, in Mantua was Virgil 
born, while Verona was the German gate, barred and very 
strong. 

Such was the state of Venetia before the Empire fell. Its 
condition since, save for that city that was to rise out of the 
sea, that was not yet founded, has been till our own day an 
almost unrelieved disaster. Before that fall there was im- 
mutable peace, a vast plenty, an unimaginable security and 
. happiness ; after it, terror, unbroken war, starvation, tyranny, 
and defeat. ..The Empire fell. Why ? 

Let us make no mistake; such a question, tremendous as it 
is, is not beside the point here. Out of that fall Venice rose ; 
and then we must never forget, here in the Veneto we are 
upon the frontier. That vast range of mountains we see to the 
north is the last watershed, it drains into the Danube. Yonder 
lies all the mystery of the Germanics : the barbarism that all 
but unmade Europe, that broke it again in the sixteenth 
century, and that even to-day is but waiting its opportunity for 
a new conquest. 

Why did the Empire fall ? And to begin with let us console 
ourselves with this assurance, that not all the Germanics 



6 VENICE AND YENETIA 

together could have sundered it had not an inward rottenness 
invited so wild a blow. 

We have seen Venetia glorious with cities, the whole vast 
plain traversed by roads, the ports open and flourishing, the 
lands tilled, the whole province filled with people. Where 
was its weakness, in what lay its decline? 

Perhaps in mere old age, a certain languor and weariness, 
half spiritual, half physical, a need of repose or recreation. 
But assuredly if this were so — and it is certainly doubtful 
whether an universal thing like the Empire can know old age 
and weariness — assuredly this was not the only if even the 
chief cause. That might seem to have been, so far, that 
is, as it was not a result of an universal mongrelism, the 
worst enemy of Roman civilization as of ours, a decline 
of wealth, a flaw in the means of distributing wealth which 
the Empire had so carefully fostered and with so splendid 
a success. 

Hearing men talk and reading the history of our professional 
historians, a mere man of letters may be excused if he often 
wonders whether these writers so eagerly national, and most ot 
them on what might seem such precarious, even false, grounds, 
ever really were able to understand what the Empire was, 
what in any thoughtful contemplation of life, of the history of 
man, it really meant. While it remained we were one, since it 
departed there has been only war. Even in Britain, the last 
of the provinces, the writers I have alluded to never seem 
to understand that for some 350 to 400 years there was 
a majestic civilization which was our common heritage with 
our fellows — that there was for all great purposes but one 
language common to the Empire, that for more than 150 
years Britain was Christian and enjoyed with the rest ot 
the Empire one official religion, that above all there was 
peace. 

The Pax Romana ! we have spoken of it ever since with a 
kind of longing. Well, that was Rome. From the day when 
Alaric took the City, 24 August, 410, we have never known it 
since, not for one hour. With all our modern contrivances, 



VENETIA AND VENICE 7 

our cleverness, our mechanical genius, we have not been able 
to establish just that.^ 

The Pax Romana, the outward and visible sign of the 
Empire, was domestic as well as political. It ensured a 
complete and absolute order, the condition of civilization. 
This peace, established through many generations, seemed 
immutable and unbreakable, and with it went a concep- 
tion of property more fundamental than anything we have 
been able to understand, while free exchange was assured 
by a complete system of communication and admirable 
laws. 

What can have destroyed our Empire, so splendid and 
so strong? I have said it was mongrelism, an almost 
universal mixture of incompatible races, and an economic 
flaw that brought Rome down and with her the world. Those 
flaws, at any rate, are obvious, and in somewhat the same way 
everywhere threaten the laborious structure of our civilization 
to-day, and more surely, for our civilization stands on a costly 
and insecure foundation of armaments. 

That universal mongrelism, the advent of the Jew, and the 
destruction of several aristocracies, are obvious. Less clear is 
the fact that the wealth that the Empire was so admirably 
fitted to accumulate, which it did accumulate with so splendid 
a success, was wrongly distributed. Too soon, certainly in 
the time of Marcus Aurelius, the means of production had 
come into a comparatively few hands, but not upon them fell 
the burden of the State. I do not speak of the lower class, 
still less of the slaves ; I speak of the higher bourgeoisie, they 
held up great Rome. When they became impoverished 
Rome fell ; when they became impoverished, as they did at 
last everywhere throughout the Empire, it was worth no man's 
while to hold up the State. They were tired, call it old age if 

' What I mean will perhaps be more obvious to the reader when I 
say that in 1909-1910 England, France, Germany, Austria, Spain, and 
Italy were spending near two hundred millions sterling per annum on 
their armies alone, and this not against any barbarian, but against one 
another. 



8 VENICE AND YENETIA 

you will, many of them fell into a servile condition. Rome 
fell, and with Rome the world. 

These men who for more than five hundred years had 
borne the weight of that great government must have been 
numerous in the Veneto. They decayed through many years. 
Slowly, yes, and foreseen the crisis came, the frontiers were 
broken, the Germanies rushed in. After Africa and Britain, I 
suppose there was no province which suffered more grievously 
than Venetia. 

I say the crisis was foreseen : it was, it must have been ; 
but no one, prophet or statesman, dreamed, or in any way 
foreboded, the fall of the Empire. It seemed imperishable, 
founded for ever, indestructible, deathless. Yet it fell. 

A man living at that time in Verona, anywhere in Venetia, 
must often have seen the barbarians, must often have laughed 
at them, for they were admitted, though in small numbers, 
within the Empire. That he ever dreamed of the revolt we 
may well doubt. Insecurity was not a haunting dread to the 
man of the Empire as it is to us. 

At any rate, whatever he may have thought, he was not pre- 
pared for Alaric's descent on Venetia in November, 401, he 
was not prepared for the fall of Aquileia, he was not prepared 
for the siege of Verona, cities of the Empire. Yet with a vast 
astonishment he saw all swept away. Claudian speaks of such 
an one, an old husbandman of Verona, watching his trees, 
** his contemporary trees," burning in his orchards, his vines 
trampled underfoot, his cottage, his family, his happiness 
swept away before his eyes. Was there no rage in such a 
man ? Of what avail was rage against the iron teeth of this 
Germanic horde ! " Fame," says Claudian, " encircling with 
terror her gloomy wings, proclaimed the march of the barbarian 
and filled Italy with terror." Yet this was but the first blow. 
Already on the far shores of the Baltic, in the impassable 
mountains of Asia, the wolves gathered. Night fell. 

That night, filled with an unspeakable horror and fear, 
endured for near four hundred years. In it we see pass 
figures so terrible that they can never be forgotten or pass 



VENETIA AND VENICE 9^ 

away, they live for ever in the legends of the people, the only 
literature of the Fall. Some of these figures, rude and uncouth 
though they be, we might almost admire but for their wolfish 
business, some are so appalling that it is only in the image of 
beasts we hear of them : Attila smeared with blood, panting 
like a wolf, with long hooked teeth looking for prey; Genseric, 
the scourge of God ; Totila, who left the City silent ; and other 
nameless things there were that feasted upon the ruins, roar- 
ing out of the Germanics, their eyes bright from the darkness 
of the forests ; they came, they filled Italy. Till there was, so 
at last they cried one to another in that guttural tongue, no 
more to destroy. They were wrong ; there was this : the soul 
of Europe. 

In the darkest and most impenetrable hour of that appalling 
night the Church arose and cried for vengeance. She was 
heard, she was answered. Faintly, far off in the defiles of the 
Alps, winding over the passes and the snow, there came the 
horns of Charlemagne. The sword of Europe was unscabbarded ; 
La Joyeuse flashed in the sun of Italy. Charlemagne fell 
upon the heathen and scattered them, and from his anger 
there was no escape. In a moment all was changed. Like 
one of those gaunt cities that on the confines of the desert of 
Africa still attest the Roman name, the Empire suddenly 
reappeared, terrible, exalted, indestructible. In the court of 
S. Peter's, on the feast of the Nativity in the year 800, Leo, 
our Pope, crowned Charlemagne Emperor. Europe was saved. 

Europe was saved, but not all at once. The anarchy of the 
ninth century was, if possible, more appalling than any which 
had preceded it, but the achievement of Charlemagne, above 
all his crowning in S. Peter's at the hand of the Pope, ensured 
the slow rebuilding of Latin Power, that infinitely gradual 
resurrection of Europe, of the Empire, which, proceeding 
infallibly through many hundreds of years, came to its own in 
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and of which the modern 
world is but the latest, I cannot beUeve the last, result. 

Those centuries which had seen the hope and order of the 
world swept away are properly known to history as the Dark 



10 VENICE AND VENETIA 

Ages. They alone created nothing, but on the contrary com- 
pelled even Europe to return to the habits of the forest, the 
despair of Asia, the dumbness of the beast. We know nothing 
of them j they are a vast hiatus in our history. Before them 
there is the Day and after them the Dawn ; themselves are an 
unfathomable night. They passed : Deo gratias. 

I say they created nothing. On the contrary, they aban- 
doned everything; this can be illustrated in any one of the 
provinces of the Empire : in Britain for instance, at St. 
Albans, where the site of the British city had been changed by 
the Romans, yet the barbarians returned to it. They created 
nothing, they conserved nothing — they were only barbarians. 
Yet as it were in spite of themselves they were the cause of 
the foundation by Latin genius, patience, and endurance of 
one very great and splendid thing. Here in Venetia we should 
remember it. I mean the city of Venice. 

It is true that to its dying day — and all things must pass 
away — Venice will carry the birth-mark, the scar of her genesis. 
She is of the Dark Ages, and in her whole aspect, in her archi- 
tecture, her government and her history we may perceive it, 
and may indeed trace to it her future and the long captivity 
which she alone of all the provinces of Italy was called upon 
to endure. She never was, she never will be wholly European ; 
yet in another and as true a sense she is the one thing we 
were able to create in those years of horror — the child of 
terror and fear — our child though by a barbarian father. 

The parent city of Venice, if indeed any may claim that 
honour, was Aquileia, that great Roman place at the head of 
the Gulf of the Adriatic, and we shall best understand the 
foundation of Venice by glacing at the fortune of this city 
during the Dark Ages. 

Aquileia had suffered many sieges from the time when the 
Empire began to feel the first stirrings of the anarchy which 
at last left her at the mercy of those appalling hordes, wave 
after wave, of barbarism. In 238 she had been besieged by 
Maximus and had repulsed him very gloriously. In 361 she 
had suffered the attack of Jovinus. In 388 she was taken by 



VENETIA AND VENICE ii 

Theodosius and that was a sort of deliverance. These affairs 
but presaged what was to be the fate of that almost im- 
pregnable fortress which held the road to Rome. Her 
appalling destiny began to be fulfilled in the year 401, when 
Alaric and his Goths, fallen like an avalanche from the moun- 
tains, thundered at her gates. In 406, about the time of the 
vintage, they are said to have pillaged her with her sister 
Altinum. Yet Latin as she was she persisted, she lived, she 
was not destroyed. A worse fate awaited her ; it was not to 
the rude chivalry of the Goths she was to render her life but 
to that yellow butcher Attila and the Huns. Aquileia was at 
that time, in spite of everything, one of the richest, most 
populous and strongest of the maritime cities of the Adriatic 
coast.^ Attila laid siege to her in 452, for three months in 
vain. Indeed, he had been compelled by the yelping of his 
own wolves to order the raising of the siege, when, so the story 
goes, riding round the walls on the last morning in his anger, 
by chance he saw a stork preparing to leave her nest in one of 
the towers of the great city and to fly with her young into the 
country. In that act of his fellow-beast he saw an assurance 
of victory. He hounded his Huns to the assault, and no man 
since that day has found even the ruins of Aquileia.^ Attila 
marched on : Altinum, Concordia, and Padua shared the same 
ruin. Vicenza and Verona he too consumed. In that 
night such as might flee, fled away, doubtless demanding of 
God whither they should go. God led them to the lagoons. 

We have already in some sort analyzed the aspect and 
geography of Venetia, and have certainly made it clear what 
the lagoons were and what sort of a refuge they offered. As 
it proved, they provided a secure sanctuary to these fugitives 
for many hundreds of years ; they were, in fact, impregnable 
to any armies save those of the modern world . 

* Cf. Gibbon, Decline and Fall (ed. Bury), vol. iii, pp. 467-8. 

^ Cf. Gibbon, op cit.^ vol. iii, p. 468. Jornandes affirms a hundred years 
later that Aquileia was so utterly destroyed : " Ita ut vix ejus vestigia ut 
appareant reliquerint. " Even the name was applied to quite another 
place. 



12 VENICE AND VENETIA 

What the fugitives saw before them was a vast and shallow 
lake of salt water, in shape a vast crescent guarded all about 
by impassable marsh and before by the lidi and the sea. This 
lake, scattered with islands, and held, perhaps, by a few fisher 
folk, was of very great extent, as we have seen, and nowhere of 
much depth, but impassable by any army, certainly by any 
army of barbarians. Here the fugitives were safe. 

There was no organized exodus, of course. On the con- 
trary, the fugitives doubtless came thither as stragglers 
during the years of the Terror. They can have brought little 
with them ; they were probably almost naked, they were 
certainly without any organization, but they were Latin, all that 
was left of Latin civilization after the Hunish deluge. They 
began to arrive in 452 j in 466 they have already formed a 
sort of State, precarious, doubtless, and only temporary in its 
idea ; the lagoons were still to them a mere refuge till they 
could return. It was not till the invasion of the Longobards, 
a hundred years later, that they realized once for all that 
there would be no return, that any such attempt was im- 
possible. In 568 they built Torcello — that it might endure ; 
later they occupied Malamocco and Rialto, islands of the 
lagoon. They knew they were a remnant; but they were 
prepared to go on. 

We know nothing of that early settlement, but we can, per- 
haps, imagine it from the character of the lagoons — a vague 
world of low islands composed of mud and sand through 
which twice a day the tide swept in deep and unknown 
channels, by which alone the islands could be approached 
from the sea and which were hidden in the vast expanse of 
shallow water. Yet it was not altogether a new thing, this 
building of a town really upon the sea ; the wonder of Venice, 
now so unique, blinds us to that fact, yet it was not without a 
sort of precedent. 

Cassiodorus, the friend and secretary of Theodoric the 
Great, the founder of the Ostrogothic monarchy who at the 
end of that disastrous fifth century secured for Italy a peace of 
more than thirty years, has by chance left us a description of 



•S^^iiiifii^^^liSaasrHrfri^^^^^^ 










*»» • I 



VENETIA AND VENICE 13 

the first Venetian settlement which brings it vividly before our 
eyes. He shows us a people largely engaged in fishery and 
for the most part living on what they could win from the sea. 
They had driven piles into the mud to hold it from the tide, 
binding them together with wattles and rushes, they had con- 
served the rainfall in pozzi^ and their dwellings were all made 
of wattle, " built like sea-birds' nests, half on sea and half on 
land, spread, as the Cyclades, over the surface of the waters." 
Such also had been the foundation of Ravenna many centuries 
before. It too, from which the sea is now so far, had been 
built upon the waves upon piles driven into the mud of the 
southernmost part of the vast lagoon, and there from the time 
of Augustus the navy of Rome had found a permanent station. 

But it cannot have been for long that Venice remained a 
mere settlement. In those disastrous days the refugees 
quickly increased, bringing with them bricks or clay for bricks 
from the mainland and some stone, as little by little what had 
been a mere refuge came to be regarded as a permanent settle- 
ment, a great village, a town, and at last a city. Such brick 
houses as were set up may still be seen almost anywhere on 
the islands of the lagoon save at Venice itself — at Burano, at 
Torcello, and at S. Francesco, They were one storey high and 
in the midst a courtyard was set ; here one beat out the corn, 
or dried the fish, while above the house was an open loggia 
whence one might see and signal those far out on the vague 
waters. Before the house, between it and the lagoon, a road- 
way or path was built of beaten mud strengthened with piles 
and guarded with wattles ; this was called, as it is to-day, the 
jundamenta and was, in fact, a continuation of the actual 
foundation of the house. 

It was not, however, only on the islands we now call Venice 
that these settlements were made and these cottages built ; 
indeed, the island of Rialto was among the last to be oc- 
cupied. The refugees, as we know, at least in the first 
instance, came from Aquileia, very far away from Venezia ; 
they settled first on those islands or mud banks nearest to 
them, yet far enough away for safety ; Grado surely first, 



14 VENICE AND VENETIA 

Carole, Heraclea, Torcello, Burano, Malamocco, Rialto, 

Chioggia, and one may think somewhat in that order. But 

the first permanent settlement of which we have any record 

or any legend is that which the people of Altinum made 

at Torcello when they fled before the Lombards in 568. 

They were the last to flee ; possibly they were the landowners 

and fled at last only when it was death to stay, since they 

could not take their wealth with them. They seem to have 

been, Roman as they still were, under the command of their 

Bishop, whose name was Paulus. They had seen the flight 

of their friends to Ravenna and to Istria, but when at last 

they too had to go they did so deliberately, fasting and 

praying for three days ere they went forth. Also they asked 

of God a sign such as He gave to Israel to direct them 

whither they should go. And it was as they desired, for out 

of the night came a Voice like thunder which said, " Go ye 

up to the tower and consider the stars." And Paulus the 

Bishop went up to the top of the tower of his church and 

saw the stars set in the sea of the heavens as so many bright 

islands in the lagoon, and he understood and led forth his 

people, and they came presently across the vast marsh to a low 

island and rested there and called the place Torcello, because 

of the tower from which the vision had been vouchsafed them. 

Now, as the legend tells, there was with Paulus the Bishop, 

a priest, possibly his chaplain, named Marcus. To this man 

it was given to see in a vision : " As I went along the lido 

a great cloud all of white, and within as it were two stars 

like the sun for brightness, and I heard a voice Hke unto 

many waters saying, ' I am the Saviour and Lord of all the 

earth; that ground whereon thou art I give to thee, build 

there a church in My name.' And after I heard another 

voice softer than the morning dew which said, ' I am Mary, 

Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ, I would that thou built 

a church in my honour also.' " Nor were these all the visions 

he had, for Peter the Prince of the Apostles, St. Autolinus, 

S. Giustina, and S. John the Baptist also appeared to him. 

What are we to make of such a legend ? 



VENETIA AND VENICE 15 

This at least, that the ecclesiastical power had at last been 
compelled to forsake the mainland ; and this, too, which 
follows from that fact, namely, that it is now a permanent 
immigration with which we are dealing ; churches are to be 
built, not one merely, but many. 

And note this : Christ gives the land to the people. You 
do not give away a gift like that, nor do you easily admit 
any other suzerain. Venice never did. Yet just that is 
what she had to decide almost at once. For the settlements 
grew in that fearful anarchy and flourished in the peace of 
the sea. A race of sailors was founded which even to-day 
is not extinct, and already in the sixth century they find 
their occupation in transport, which was to bring so much 
wealth and fame later. Even before 568 Narses had paid 
the Venetians, as I shall now call them, though Venice was 
not yet founded, to transport his troops from Grado to the 
Brenta. It was a little later that the Paduans claimed 
dominion over the islands of the lagoon from Narses, but 
when he heard that God had given them to the people who 
held them he would not decide. When the Lombards came 
— another pack of wolves — Longinus, representing the Eastern 
Empire, paid the Venetians to escort him to Byzantium ; this 
they did gladly, but when he would have them declare them- 
selves subjects to his Emperor they would not, for said they, 
" God, who is our help and protector, has saved us, that 
we might dwell upon these waters. This second Venetia 
which we have raised in the lagoon is a mighty habitation for 
us. No power of Emperor or Prince can reach us, and of 
them we have no fear." In these words the State of Venice 
was founded, the first nation, a Latin nation, to emerge out 
of the ruins of the Empire. In the quarrel of East and West 
that claim grew ever clearer, yet it must not be forgotten that 
Venice thus founded upon the sea looked in fact East, and, 
though never pledging herself, did for her own ends make 
a formal act of submission to Byzantium, and that Maurice 
the Cappadocian in 584 conferred her first diploma upon 
her as a separate State. 



1 6 VENICE AND VENETIA 

For more than a century then, the little communities of 
the lagoon had been governed by elected officers, called 
Tribunes, each Tribune representing an island, Heraclea 
being the most important. In the year that diploma was 
received these Tribunes were doubled, the original Tribune 
remaining at the head of affairs in the island, the new one 
joining with his fellows from the other islands to form a 
sort of federal government. This was the first step towards 
administrative unity. That it did not succeed goes without 
saying, but it was a necessary step doubtless, and when the 
Patriarch of Grado summoned a great meeting of the people 
of this new Venetia at Heraclea in 697 they were ready 
to suppress the Tribunal federal government and to elect a 
leader, a Dux, a Doge. Thus before the end of the seventh 
century the actual unity of Venice was secured. 

Yet not without a struggle. The chief need, the pro- 
found aspiration of Venice then, as always, was for in- 
dependence; but in the confusion of the world, the vast 
struggle that was going on on the mainland, this was not easy 
to secure. Inevitably two parties appear in the State, each, 
we may believe, intent upon securing her independence in 
its own way. Very roughly we may call them aristocratic 
and democratic. The first looked eastward to Byzantium 
and saw, or pretended to see, there the ruler of the world 
and the necessary protector of their city ; it was also in- 
clined to make the Dogeship hereditary. The other, more 
clairvoyant of the future maybe, looked to the Church and 
the Western world. It was in Heraclea that the first party 
had its stronghold, where Anafesto, the first Doge, had his 
seat. But the second party was strong in Jesolo and 
Malamocco. 

It will be remembered that Venice had already received 
a diploma from Byzantium ; it must have been about the 
time of the emergence of these two parties that she made 
her first treaty with Liutprand, King of the Lombards 
(709). That this was necessary all were ready to admit, for 
the future of Venice lay in commerce, and such an under- 



VENETIA AND VENICE 17 

standing with her neighbours of the mainland was necessary 
to her. But what is important to us is that thus at the 
entrance into this internal struggle she started as it were on 
an even keel ; she had entered into relations both with the 
East and with the West. 

This is no place to discover to the reader the progress 
of that quarrel, it has been told well many times, ^ and it was 
always too much at the mercy of the tremendous forces, of 
the mainland, of the two Empires, of the Church, for us to 
be able to follow it in such a book as this. But what really 
emerges is this. To the mind of the world at that time and 
for many centuries after it was utterly inconceivable that 
the Empire had passed away. Of such a place as Venice every- 
one would ask : To which Empire does it belong — to the East 
or to the West ? The Venetians themselves, intent as they were 
on independence, asked themselves the question. We may 
follow perhaps their solution of it as far as this. In the 
beginning of the eighth century S. Gregory II had denounced 
Leo, the Byzantine Emperor, as an Iconoclast, and had 
invited Liutprand the Lombard to seize Leo's city of Ravenna. 
Liutprand was successful, and the Imperial governor fled to 
the lagoons, for he held them part of the Eastern Empire. He 
appealed to Doge Orso, an Heraclean and therefore of the 
first of the two parties I have described in Venice, to recover 
Ravenna. This was done, though Jesolo, Malamocco, and 
their party attacked Heraclea and murdered the Doge for it. 
The Pope soon quarrelled with his barbarian ally, and half a 
century later the Papacy, as we know, called in the Franks 
against the Lombards, and crowned Pepin King of Italy, 
Pepin came to make good his title, defeated the Lombards 
and besieged Ravenna and Pentapolis, bestowing them on the 
Pope. This act created a vastly different political situation. 
It was confirmed by the advent of Charlemagne, who, fearing 
the Eastern policy of the lagoons, had the Venetian merchants 

* Notably by Mr. Horatio Brown in his big History and very 
succinctly and well in his little book on the Venetian Republic (Dent, 
n.d.). To all his work I am much indebted. 
c 



i8 VENICE AND YENETIA 

expelled from Ravenna. This act stultified the democratic 
party in Venice and caused a Byzantine reaction. Whatever 
else Venice was, she was now against Charlemagne, who was, 
however, naturally favoured as the Pope's ally by the Patriarch 
of Grado. At this moment the new see of Castello — it was 
Olivolo then — awaited its Bishop. The Doge named a Greek, 
but the Patriarch refused him. The Doge called for ships, 
and they came, and, led by his son Maurizio, they took Grado 
and flung the Patriarch from the loftiest of his towers. This, 
however, like most violence, was useless. The dead Patriarch 
was succeeded by his nephew Fortunatus, a very strong and 
remarkable man. He plotted to murder the Doge, but he was 
discovered, and he fled to the court of Charlemagne. His 
friends, however, after a time succeeded in electing one of 
their own family, Obelerio, as Doge, and Fortunatus returned. 
A sort of civil war followed. Malamocco attacked Heraclea 
and subdued it, and succeeded in securing the government to 
itself. The Doge even invited Charlemagne, and it seemed as 
though nothing could prevent Venice from falling to the 
Western Empire. Nevertheless it was not so; the Byzantine 
party revived, appealed to the Emperor Nicephorus, and 
again Fortunatus fled. This was in the opening of the ninth 
century. 

Fortunatus went to Pepin, King of Italy, as he had gone to 
his father Charlemagne. Pepin determined to reduce the 
lagoons. He assembled a fleet at Ravenna, sailed up the 
coast, took Brondolo, Chioggia, and Pelestrina, and, working 
along the lidi^ made for Malamocco the capital. In this crisis 
the Doge and the Venetians took a bold and splendid step ; 
they forsook Malamocco, which lay exposed to the sea, and set 
up their new capital on a group of islands everywhere guarded 
by the lagoon, then called Rialto and later Venice. Pepin 
attempted to follow them, but his ships ran aground, his 
sailors were lost in the vague and shallow waters with their 
confused tideways and winding channels. Legend reports 
that at the suggestion of an old woman at Malamocco he built 
a bridge of wood, from which his frightened horses leapt into 



VENETIA AND VENICE 19 

the sea with their riders and all his staff in a defeat much like 
Pharaoh's. This much we know: he confessed himself beaten 
and abandoned the attack. The Venetians remained under 
the influence — the precarious influence — of the Eastern 
Empire, and in that short campaign, as it were in a second 
flight, was founded that city which was to grow into so mighty 
and so splendid a dominion, beside which Heraclea, Tesolo, 
and Malamocco were but villages in a waste of water. 

The greatness of Venice, like the greatness of England, was 
encouraged largely by the oligarchic form of her govern 
ment, a government which like our own later came little by 
little into the hands of an oligarchy of nobles which saved 
her equally from the unstable and fragile yoke of tyrants and 
from the distraction and anarchy of a democracy. She pro- 
duced no parvenu Medici to break her spirit as Florence did, 
nor did she deliver herself like Siena into the hands of the 
people. These States soon fell, Venice was to remain almost 
to our own time. Yet she like they built up her own fate out 
of the circumstances and the environment in which she found 
herself. She was determined always in one thing : that she 
would not be ruled by a lord, no hereditary ruler should claim 
her. But this determination, too, was forced upon her ; for had 
the Dogeship become hereditary — and in the years which 
followed the establishment of Rialto as the site of the city it 
was the question to be decided — it would not have been long 
before she would have fallen into the power of the Frankish 
kingdom or into the hands ot the Eastern Empire. She 
refused to permit the Dogeship to become hereditary, yet she 
did not deliver herself to a democracy. The reason she did 
not was the sea. The command of the sea, and she claimed 
nothing less, has never been attempted by a democracy, it 
demands an effort too persistent, too far-sighted and too self- 
denying. The command of the sea soon became a necessity 
for Venice, and this necessity largely decided the ultimate 
form of her government. Like England later she became an 
aristocratic oHgarchy represented by a constitutional sovereign, 
in Venice elective, in England hereditary. 



20 VENICE AND YENETIA 

Yet all this was not achieved without a long struggle. 
Indeed, it was not till two Doges had been banished and 
one murdered that in 1023 it was finally obvious that an 
hereditary Dogeship was impossible in Venice. The attempt 
had been continued by various families — the Particiachi, the 
Candiani, and the Orseoli — during more than two hundred 
years counting only from the establishment of Venice at 
Rialto, an act which was finally confirmed in 828, when the 
body of S. Mark was brought to Venice from Alexandria by 
two adventurers/ and the lagoons, which had had so many 
patrons — Our Lord, the Blessed Virgin, S. Giustina, and S. 
Theodore — were at last placed under the benediction of the 
Lion and the Book. 

By 1023, then, it was evident that the Dogeship could not 
be established as an hereditary office. In that year a law was 
made appointing two councillors to assist the Doge — who, 
moreover, was compelled by the same law to consult with the 
more prominent citizens ; the aristocracy had appeared. 

The aristocracy, if so we may call the " more prominent " 

citizens at this time, was very like that of the mainland cities. 

It was unruly and eager for private war. The Caloprini and 

Morosini, for instance, had practised a long vendetta, and had 

Venice been less than impregnable their appeal and use of 

foreign aid would have ruined the State to which they owed 

allegiance. They were crushed, however, by a stronger than 

they, the Doge Pietro Orseolo II (983-1008), who founded 

the maritime supremacy of the city. We shall consider him 

as a statesman later ; his insistence, however, on order within 

Venice itself, his curbing of the great families, did much to 

consolidate an aristocracy which, when his own family was 

for ever debarred from office, was ready in 1032 to take more 

than a hand in the government. 

The two councillors who were appointed in that year to 

assist the Doge found they had two things to accomplish 

before they or their city were secure — they had to make the 

Doge a figurehead, and to take all political power out of the 

^ See infra, pp. 45-47* 



VENETIA AND VENICE 21 

hands of the people. These ends might be accomplished, not 
easily, but at one blow nevertheless — by depriving the people 
of their right to elect the Doge ; for if the Doge could 
claim no popular mandate, as it were, he was but a tool in 
their hands. 

The people had been wont to elect the Doge in S. Pietro di 
Castello, the cathedral of Venice, the Bishop and clergy 
assisting, with prayers and some ceremony, the Doge being 
borne back on a barge of state to S. Mark's, which he entered 
barefoot in token of humility. From the high altar he took 
his staff of office and proceeded to the Ducal Palace amid the 
acclamations of all Venice. There he took the oath of 
allegiance and set about ordering the place, spoiled by the 
mob, to be refurnished. 

Such seems to have been the right and custom of the 
people till 1 192. Venice was by then enriched beyond all 
expectation by the business of the Crusades ; as we shall see 
later, her power was already securely laid upon the sea. A 
very considerable, even an enormous wealth had come into 
the houses of those "prominent citizens," just as an enormous 
wealth came into the hands of our parvenu aristocracy when 
Henry VIII destroyed the monasteries. The results were the 
same in England and in Venice. In England the parvenu 
nobility presently made the Civil War, curtailed the power of 
the Crown, turned it, as DTsraeli said, into a Venetian Doge- 
ship, and till 1832 ruled us for our enormous good. In 
Venice a national disaster^ the miserable campaign of 11 71 
which Doge Vitale Michiel II had undertaken to avenge the 
treachery of the Emperor Manuel, who had seized all the 
Venetians in Constantinople, was used by the wealthy aris- 
tocracy to begin the revolution they desired and to the great 
good of Venice. 

The disaster had been the affair of the people, who com- 
pelled the Doge to action, in spite of the advice of his two 
councillors. The Doge was murdered. But what the aris- 
tocracy achieved in 11 71 was an instalment only of their 
purpose. The city was already divided, as it still is, into 



22 VENICE AND VENETIA 

sestieriJ- It was determined that each of these divisions of 
the city should elect two representatives, these forming, as it 
were, a Greater Council, whose business was threefold : (i) To 
elect the Doge, (2) to appoint all officers of the State, (3) to 
choose the members of the general assembly. The general 
assembly was formed by the selection of forty members by 
each councillor, that is to say, eighty from each sestiere, and 
consisted thus of 480 members, who served for a year. When 
they retired, their business was to choose the two represen- 
tatives from each sestiere for the Greater Council, who in their 
turn again selected the new 480 members of the general 
assembly. Thus we see the people successfully deprived of a 
voice in the election of the Doge and in the management and 
direction of the State. At the same time the Greater Council, 
as it may even now be called, appointed six officers instead of 
two to advise the Doge. Thus the Doge became a mere 
figurehead, and all this was achieved by the power of words 
over the people and the influence of pageantry, just as a 
similar change was in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 
brought about in England, and is being brought about 
to-day. The Doge was, in fact, chosen by the Greater 
Council, "if the people pleased," and in a great pageant was 
carried round the Piazza di S. Marco to receive their acclama- 
tion. All this before the end of the twelfth century ; before 
the end of the thirteenth the oligarchy was to be perfectly 
established. 

The advance towards this end began in the first years of 
that century, when the oligarchy, at the election of each new 
Doge, still further encroached upon the prerogatives of that 
office, and this not by statute, but by means of the oath — the 
coronation oath, as it were — whose terms were changed 
according to circumstances at each election. Any tendency 
towards the liberty of the Dogeship was thus continually 
checked. This subtle weapon was known as thQ pfomissione 

^ The sestieri 2CCQ. (i) Castello, (2) S. Marco, (3) Cannaregio, (4) Dorso- 
duro, (5) S. Polo, (6) Santa Croce. See also infra, pp. 94-95. 



VENETIA AND VENICE 23 

ducale. By this means already, in 1229, it was established 
that the Doge should pay taxes, should have no part in the 
election to ecclesiastical preferment, and above all should not 
hold communication with foreign powers. By 1249 he is 
forced to undertake to solicit office for no one; by 1275 he 
is forbidden to raise loans, to allow any of his family to marry 
a foreigner, to buy lands without the Ducato, or to accept fiefs 
either on his own behalf or on that of his family anywhere. 
His family, too, may hold no office save that of ambassador or 
naval captain; even his wife is not permitted to make presents. 
The Doge had become a mere figurehead, and it now only 
remained to turn the oligarchy into a close caste to establish 
it firmly and perhaps for ever. This was actually achieved in 
1297, and by this means. Till that time, theoretically at 
least, any man who could claim to be a prominent citizen 
was eligible for the Greater Council, as I have ventured 
already to call it. In 1297 two things were established, 
namely : (i) That all those who had sat in the Council 
during the last five years should always be eligible to it; 
(2) that no one whose ancestors had not sat in the Council 
between 1172 and 1297 should be eligible. This immediately 
established a governing class, or, as we might say, a peerage, 
outside which no one had a voice in the government of the 
State. A further step was taken in 13 19, when the State 
opened the Libro d' Oro, a full register of this aristocracy. 
All that was now needed was the order and arrangement of 
the oligarchy for its function of government. This occupied 
the first thirty-five years of the fourteenth century. The 
Greater Council soon grew to be too numerous for business, 
and therefore an inner council or senate, the Predagi^ of 
sixty members originally, was elected by the Greater Council, 
to whom eventually were added another sixty called the 
Zonata. This Senate of a hundred and twenty members 
managed foreign affairs, finance, customs, and naval defence. 
The six councillors of the Doge, now called the Lesser 
Council, were not disturbed, but a Council of Forty was 
established as the judicial authority of the State. In all 



24 VENICE AND VENETIA 

these councils the Doge represented the Republic, but he 
controlled none of them. 

All this was, as may be imagined, not established without a 
considerable struggle. The discontent of the people at their 
deprivation came to a head when the war of Ferrara proved 
that the new government was not efficient. The war had 
come suddenly, in 1308, and it soon became clear that neither 
the Greater Council, which was too numerous, nor the Senate, 
which was not sure of its power, could deal with it. Popular 
anger was rising. Action was necessary if the oligarchy was 
not to be strangled at its birth. It is in this crisis we see 
emerge another permanent feature of the government of 
Venice, the Collegio^ or council of sages, originally seven in 
number, the Cabinet, as we might say, elected by the Greater 
Council. This Collegio consisted really of the Secretaries of 
State for War, for the Navy, and for Finance. The final 
development of the government of Venice declared itself in a 
somewhat similar way ; it too was the result of a crisis, and 
just as we see the Collegio, or Cabinet, emerge to meet a 
foreign, so we see the Council of Ten created to meet an 
internal foe. 

Both before and after the crisis of 1308 the discontent of 
the people smouldered. It nearly came to a head in 1300, 
but it was not till ten years later that it finally declared itself, 
headed by certain nobles. It was, in fact, an attempt at 
revolution. It failed, but to meet it the Greater Council 
formed a Committee of Public Safety, as it were, which 
became a permanent part of the constitution as the Council 
of Ten. 

Thus in 1335 we have practically complete the constitution 
of Venice which was to rule that great State so successfully 
and for so many centuries. There has been nothing like it in 
Italy, or even in Europe, unless we may compare it with that 
of England between 1668 and 1832. It is in this connexion 
interesting to note that neither England nor Venice made a 
part of the refounded Empire ; that both were in some sort a 
new creation quite outside it ; that both, too, were but for- 



VENETIA AND VENICE 25 

tresses in the sea dependent upon the command of the 
sea and upon their oversea commerce; that both were the 
creators of a vast colonial Empire. Venice for long, how- 
ever, stood alone. In the midst of the despotic or democratic 
governments of Italy she stood like a vast rock against which 
many were broken in pieces. 

Why was this ? We have described the establishment of 
that strong government which was for long the envy of the 
world, but this alone does not account for the greatness and 
wealth of Venice. Its very existence is, in fact, dependent 
upon one fundamental thing — an impregnable State. No 
amount of good government nor any quantity of excellent 
intentions could have saved Venice alive, any more than they 
will save England, for a single hour. On this alone depended 
the establishment and safety of the Republic — the command 
of the sea. How did she obtain and keep it ? In answering 
that question we turn from domestic to foreign affairs. 

It has already been said that Venice looked eastward, and 
not south; this was forced upon her by her geographical 
position, and established as she was in the sea, a mere fortress 
at the head of the Adriatic, her first necessity was bare 
security — the command, then, of the Adriatic ; her second 
was commerce, therefore an open road to Syria and the 
Levant. She won these in three main efforts and by various 
means. 

Her maritime consciousness was early thrust upon her when 
she provided transport for the Imperial armies of the East, as 
we have already noted. The only attack that had ever been 
made upon her with any hope of success was that of Pepin — 
and it came from the sea. It made Rialto the centre of 
Venetian life ; and when Venice was there established, she at 
once built a fleet of war consisting of some sixty ships. Even 
so she was not quite secure. Her fleet was tied to home waters. 
This was brought home to her in 836, when, her fleet absent 
on that disastrous expedition to Taranto, the Dalmatian pirates 
of the coast opposite the lagoons fell upon the city. It was 



26 VENICE AND VENETIA 

obvious at once that, though she might fortify the lidi^ she 
could never really be secure, could never allow her fleet out 
of home waters till this pirate power was destroyed. It was 
the first necessity ; yet she was not able to achieve it till the 
year 997. Meantime, she had become the mart of Italy ; her 
transports, laden with the merchandise of the East, peopled 
the sea. It became every year more necessary to secure the 
absolute safety of this commerce, of which the pirates too 
often made a prey. There was this, too, that the people of 
the Dalmatian coast, in trade relations with the Republic, were 
also and too often at the mercy of these robbers. It became a 
vital commercial necessity to exterminate them. 

It was Doge Pietro Orseolo II who embarked upon this, 
the first great expedition the Republic undertook, in the year 
997 ; the fleet sailed on Ascension Day. He was completely 
successful. He met the pirates and defeated them. The 
people of the Dalmatian towns welcomed him ; only Curzola 
and Lagosta held out. Curzola was easily broken, Lagosta it 
was necessary formally to attack ; it fell. To the title of Doge 
of Venice was added that of Duke of Dalmatia. This expedi- / 
tion gave Venice the Adriatic \ from the hour in which it wa/ 
successful s'he was secure. The Dalmatian cities became less 
valuable allies ; she exercised a sort of protection over them, 
and their numerous and splendid ports were thrown open to 
her ships. 

The dominion of Venice, the command of the Adriatic, thus 
obtained, was marked and symbolized every year thereafter till 
the fall of the Republic before the apparition of Napoleon in 
£796, in a ceremony at once dramatic and touching, as though 
at once to remind her people of their great birthright and to 
convince them of some sacred responsibility of which they 
were the heirs. Would that we had some such ceremony in 
England to-day ! It took place on Ascension Day, because on 
that day the fleet had sailed, and it was called the Sposalizio 
del Mare, the Marriage of the Sea ; and we shall describe it 
when we come to deal with the spot where it took place. ^ 

^ See infra, p. i^o et seq. 



VENETIA AND VENICE 27 

The Dalmatian expedition is of very great importance in the 
history of Venice ; it gave the city confidence in herself, and is, 
in fact, the beginning of her exterior history. She had, as we 
have seen, always been in touch with the Eastern Empire, and 
had often, as we have seen too, rendered her considerable 
services. This policy she continued; but she was now in a 
position to reap the full benefit of such reward as Constanti- 
nople had to offer. For help rendered against the Normans 
Venice obtained from the Emperor Alexis in 1085 a "free 
access" for her citizens to all harbours of the Empire; and 
her citizens were not only to be free from all customs, 
but they were to be allowed to acquire land, to build 
factories, and to establish depots in Constantinople itself. 
In fact, a Venetian quarter rose in the capital of the East 
which was to be the cause of her most wonderful achieve- 
ment. 

That expedition against King Robert on behalf of Byzantium 
brings us to within ten years of the Crusades, and with the 
Crusades we come to so sudden and extraordinary an expan- 
sion of Venice in power and wealth that we find her at their 
close probably the most formidable power in Europe. The 
reasons for this are chiefly geographical. Venice alone of all 
the city States looked to the East, and was by far the most 
convenient port of departure thereto for any army coming from 
the north and west of Europe. It is not surprising, then, that 
in the Crusades she suddenly became the gate of Europe. 
Her only rivals, Genoa and perhaps Pisa, lay far to the south ; 
moreover, neither passively nor actively were they so strong as 
she, nor could either of them be said to command their sea as 
Venice held the Adriatic. So she became the power which 
transported those vast multitudes to the East. Yet, if she did 
little or nothing to win the Holy Sepulchre for the Western 
Empire, her fleets kept the seas ; and when Baldwin, King of 
Jerusalem, asked for aid in subduing the ports of Palestine she 
sent a hundred ships, and Sidon fell in 1102 ; she sent seventy- 
two ships, and Tyre fell in 11 23. In both of these cities 
she obtained quarters, she built churches, she established 



28 VENICE AND VENETIA 

markets, where she used her own weights and measures. It 
was an Empire she was building in the East while the chivalry 
of Europe sought for a Tomb. 

All this, which meant vast increase of wealth and power, 
could not be achieved without exciting jealousies. Venice 
suddenly found herself under the displeasure of the Emperor 
of Constantinople, who looked with hostility on the Latin 
kingdom of Jerusalem, and especially at the part Venice, a 
feudatory, as he thought, of the Eastern Empire, had played 
therein. The policy of Venice was beginning to run counter 
to that Of Byzantium. This was presently made clearer still. 
In 1 148 Venice, at the request of the Emperor, had made war 
on the Normans in the Ionian Islands. She defeated them ; 
but the treaty she made was selfish and merely secured 
her possessions in the Adriatic from attack. The Emperor 
determined to punish her. 

It will be remembered that Venice had already secured a 
quarter in Constantinople with certain trading rights. These 
she had exercised to the full, and the Venetian quarter is said 
to have held as many as 200,000 inhabitants. In 1171 all 
the Venetians were arrested by order of the Emperor and 
their goods seized. This sudden and unexpected blow found 
Venice unprepared. She sent a great expedition against the 
Emperor, but it was shattered and discomfited. This failure 
offered the oligarchy the opportunity it had awaited to estab- 
lish itself in Venice. That revolution was successful. Venice 
was not again to be taken unawares. 

The disaster, grievous as it was, bitter though it was, left 
Venice still by far the greatest sea power in the world. This 
appeared when it was seen that if the great Crusade preached 
by Innocent III were ever to reach the Sepulchre, Venice 
must transport it thither. She agreed to do so on her own 
terms. She would transport 9,000 knights and 20,000 foot, 
4,500 horses, and find provision for twelve months, besides 
herself sending fifty galleys ; this for 85,000 silver marks and 
a half of all that was taken. That bargain was confirmed in 
S. Mark's, but though Venice was ready to carry out her part 



VENETIA AND VENICE 29 

of it the Crusaders, it soon appeared, were not. Venice, taking 
thoughtj turned all to her own benefit. The old and glorious 
Doge Enrico Dandolo ascended the pulpit of S. Mark's and 
spoke to the assembled multitude. He offered to lead the 
Crusade if on its part, seeing that the money was not forth- 
coming, it would attack Zara and Dalmatia, now in the hands 
of the Hungarians, and thus secure the inviolability of the 
Adriatic. The Crusaders agreed. They sailed in October, 
led by Dandolo— a splendid, an immortal company — in the 
tall, great ships, led by the towering galleys Aquila, Pellegrino 
and Paradiso, flying the banner of S. Mark. 

Zara was taken. Then a new plan was opened. It is said 
that Boniface, Marquis of Monferrat, was the author of it. 
However that may be, it agreed with the will of Venice. Not 
Jerusalem but Constantinople was to be the quarry of that 
Crusade. Yet, though her vengeance was thus placed to her 
hand, Venice was true to herself. She demanded and obtained 
100,000 marks for the use of the Venetian fleet in that expedi- 
tion. Then Dandolo led them on; he forced the Golden 
Horn and — how tell of the fighting ? — took the Imperial city 
in 1204. It was as though the Rome that had not heard of 
Alaric had fallen into his hands. 

In that tremendous victory Venice found herself. To her 
fell the Cyclades and the Sporades islands of the ^gean ; she 
purchased Crete, the mother of Greece; Zara was hers and 
the coast of Dalmatia ; not the Adriatic only but the Eastern 
Mediterranean was in her grip ; she held the gateways of the 
Orient. It must have seemed to Venice, even to the world, 
like an apotheosis. Who would dare to say her nay ? Well, 
Genoa would. 

The great naval struggle, the greatest of the Middle Ages, 
which thus rose out of the fall of Constantinople must always 
have been inevitable. It occupies some hundred and seventy 
years of Venetian history. Both cities fought with great 
tenacity and courage, for both felt — as, indeed, was the case- 
that their existence depended on the result. They were fight- 
ing for the command of the Mediterranean and the commerce 



30 VENICE AND VENETIA 

of the world ; the result was decided by the superior wealth, 
and therefore the superior recuperative power, of Venice. 
Moreover, Venice was impregnable save from the sea; Genoa 
was not. The series of campaigns was opened by Genoa at 
Acre, in which the Genoese sacked the Venetian quarter. 
Venice demanded satisfaction and got a refusal. Therefore 
she sacked the Genoese quarter in the same town and crushed 
the Genoese fleet in those waters. That was the first round of 
the great war, and it centred in Acre. 

The second opened in Constantinople, where in 1261, in the 
absence of the Venetian fleet, the Greek Empire was restored. 
Very naturally it favoured the Genoese merchants so that they 
threatened to dominate the whole Levant. This was fatal to 
Venice. War broke out, and Geronimo Dandolo, in 1264, 
again destroyed the Genoese fleet, this time at Trepani. A 
sort of peace followed. But Venice was not content. She 
could only be satisfied with the ruin of Genoa as a naval 
power. She was willing to reach this end by any means. 
She supplied an Admiral Alberto Morosini to the Pisans in 
their great engagement with Genoa at Meloria in 1284 ; ^ as we 
know, he was destroyed. Indeed, this was Genoa's great 
moment. Strong in Constantinople, with a new, victorious 
fleet at sea, she saw Venice regaining the trade of the East by 
treaties with the Infidel Turk. She closed the Dardanelles. 
Venice sent forth seventy-three galleys to bring her to reason ; 
Genoa defeated them in the Gulf of Alexandretta. Venice 
sent again another fleet under Ruggiero Morosini. He forced 
the Dardanelles, burned the Genoese quarter at Galata, and 
threatened the Emperor. He returned to Venice with a vast 
booty. Nevertheless the Genoese, meeting a Venetian fleet of 
ninety-five sail under Andrea Dandolo, broke it off Curzola, 
practising the tactics of Meloria. Dandolo killed himself. A 
treaty of peace was made, but it was not unfavourable to 
Venice. That was in 1299, and that peace might have taught 
the Genoese the truth ; Venice was too strong for them, her 

^ Cf. my *' Florence and Northern Tuscany" (3rd edition, Methuen), 
p. %T et seq. 



VENETIA AND VENICE 31 

wealth too great, she was destined to win, she was built to 
endure. 

The third campaign centres in the Black Sea. Quarrels 
about the trade with the Tartars opened it. Under the walls 
of Pera Paganino Doria broke the fleet of Niccolb Pisani, but 
the Venetians sent reinforcements, and Pisani, in 1353, broke 
the Genoese off Cagliari and destroyed them. That was all 
but a mortal blow. Genoa placed herself under Giovanni 
Visconti of Milan. Petrarch, at his request, came to Venice 
to arrange terms, but Venice would hear of none. The war 
went on ; Genoa flung a fleet upon the seas under Paganino, 
who slipped by Pisani into the Adriatic and burned Curzola 
and Lagosta and threatened Venice itself. A truce was 
made, for Genoa was not ready for a great advance. Never- 
theless Doria caught Pisani in winter quarters at Sapienza in 
November, 1354, and took his whole command. This was 
the worst blow Venice ever had till she fell in 1796. It found 
her in confusion, for in the next year Doge Marino Falier was 
found guilty of the obscure conspiracy which bears his name 
and was beheaded by the Council of Ten. But, as before, 
Genoa was too exhausted to advance; she had neither the 
money nor the men to break Venice, who, as soon as peace 
was made, turned again to business and recouped herself. 

The fourth and last campaign broke out of necessity because 
the three which had preceded it had not been decisive. The 
immediate quarrel was over the island of Tenedor, which 
commanded the approach to the Dardanelles. Venice, by an 
unscrupulous threat, procured this from the Emperor Paleo- 
logus. Genoa tried to frustrate this act of the Emperor, and, 
failing, made alliance with Hungary and the Paduans. Out of 
Venice sailed Vettor Pisani, with the banners of S. Mark, and 
broke the Genoese off Cape Antium. By command of the 
Senate he wintered at Pola in Istria, and was surprised by 
Luciano Doria of Genoa, who destroyed his fleet. Pisani 
was imprisoned. 

Then Pietro Doria of Genoa and Carrara of Padua closed 
on Venice. Carrara held the mainland and Doria blockaded 



32 VENICE AND VENETIA 

the city from the sea, basing himself on Chioggia, which he 
took in August, 1379. He should have struck at Venice 
herself. He preferred to starve her out. 

Then Venice rose; she would not be beaten. She led 
Vettor Pisani out of prison and gave him her last ships. He 
set forth by the sea-way out of Porto di Lido for Chioggia. 
He found Doria in winter quarters in the lagoon. He seized 
and held the gate Porto di Chioggia. The blockader was 
blockaded. In vain he tried to dig himself out through the 
sand banks; Pisani scattered him, willing for him to starve. 
With untiring watchfulness he waited with half-mutinous crews 
till, on January i, 1380, Carlo Zeno, the adventurous captain, 
reinforced him. Then he took the offensive, forced the Genoese 
off the banks back into Chioggia, and received in June the 
surrender of the Genoese fleet. 

It was the last throw of Genoa. She was broken for ever ; 
Venice became sole mistress of the Mediterranean. 

We have seen Venice establish herself as a great State ; we 
have watched the development of her government into its final 
form ; we have seen her reach out and grasp first the Adriatic, 
then the Midland sea ; we have followed her step by step in 
the foundation of her dominion in the East. This develop- 
ment was natural and necessary. Her first necessity was the 
command of the Adriatic, her second the security of her trade 
routes, while a dominion in the East was not only the easiest 
but the most valuable way in which to found her com- 
merce and her rule. It is only after the opening of the 
Genoese wars that we see her attempt to acquire possessions 
on what she called terra firnia — on the mainland of Italy, that 
is. In the end she was able to refound the ancient province 
of Venetia and more, but she only began to set about this after 
years of effort in the East and upon the sea. Why ? 

The reason is perhaps obvious. She was compelled to a 
dominion on the sea before anything else, because it was only 
as mistress of the Adriatic that she could maintain herself at 
all. This she secured by her wealth, and her wealth she found 
first in the East, where she early for this reason began to found 



YENETIA AND VENICE 33 

a dominion. It was only when Genoa threatened her and from 
the sea that she began to think of the mainland. She turned 
to the mainland then for this reason. The greatest danger 
Venice ran from an enemy like Genoa, who could both hold 
and attack her from the sea, was the danger of starvation. 
With the porti blockaded and an unfriendly terra firma, she 
was at the mercy of hunger. In the lagoons one could not 
grow corn, and we find that the first acquisitions Venice made 
on terra firma were great corn-growing districts — Treviso, for 
instance, and Bassano. With the latter she obtained the 
command of a pass into the Germanics. This also she 
needed, for the West was more and more coming to be neces- 
sary to her, as the East had always been ; for if she bought in 
the East, she sold in the West, and was the natural means of 
communication between them. 

About the time of the Genoese wars — and in all this, too, 
she is like England — she had suffered much from hostile 
tariffs. The wars of Ferrara in 1240 and 1308 w^ere waged 
on this account, so was the war with the Scaligers of 1329. 
That war with the lords of Western Venetia, whose capital was 
Verona, and whose dominion stretched at that time from the 
mouth of the Po to the Alps, and from Verona to the sea, 
gave Venice possession of Treviso and Bassano, and re- 
established her trading rights in Vicenza and Verona. 
Before that war the position of Venice was, as far as food- 
stuffs and the trade routes Westward went, that of a dependent 
upon the Scaligers. A maritime enemy in conjunction with 
the Scaligers had a good chance of bringing Venice, rich as 
she was, to her knees. It was when this contingency actually 
came to pass, when Mastino della Scala tried to ally himself 
with Genoa, that Venice, seeing her danger, was compelled to 
make war on the mainland. This she did in 1339. Like 
England, she had no army fit for a continental war; like 
England, she was divided about the wisdom of this policy ; 
but, like England, she was determined to have her way. 
Her commerce was threatened, she herself was in pro- 
found danger; she forged an army, and made up her 



34 VENICE AND VENETIA 

mind to fight. She was right, and she was completely 
successful. 

The situation thus created was wholly new to her. Till now 
she had been an impregnable fortress holding the sea, which 
was her frontier. In 1339 she became a continental power, 
with a land frontier as easily attacked as any other. This is 
no place to discover how she achieved that revolution of 
policy; how she raised an army by universal service; how 
she, the youngest military power in Europe, determined to 
march to Verona if necessary, as England might determine 
to march to Berlin. For such an inquiry, useful as it would 
be to us at this time, there is no space in such a work as this. 
It must be enough for us to know— to know and to treasure 
the knowledge — that she did all this and achieved her pur- 
pose. In that she was not without allies any more than we 
should be. The Scaligers of Verona, with their vast new 
dominion, had aroused the fear and the jealousy of more 
than one neighbouring State. When Venice declared war 
she did not stand alone ; Florence, Parma, Mantua, and 
Milan were ready to assist her. This array of allies 
frightened Verona. Mastino della Scala wanted terms, and 
he sent Marsilio da Carrara, once lord but now governor 
of Padua under the Scaligers, to Venice as ambassador. 
It was an elementary and a fatal mistake. Carrara made 
secret terms with Venice; he proposed to place her in 
possession of Padua on condition that his House was 
restored there. In these circumstances the war opened. 
Scala was busy with the Visconti on the west; in his 
absence Pietro Rossi of Parma fell upon Padua, and Venice 
took it, placing Carrara, according to the bargain, once more 
in possession of his lordship. Peace was made when Brescia 
fell in 1339, and by it Venice, as we have said, acquired 
Treviso and Bassano, her first possessions on the mainland. 
She had disposed once and for all of the Scaligers, and in 
Padua saw Carrara a sort of a vassal, as she hoped, ready 
to do her bidding. 

What she had to fear — not then perhaps, but in the 



VENETIA AND VENICE 35 

future — was the growing power of the Visconti of Milan. 
Their territory ran with that of Padua. Every attack they 
made on the Padovani was in a very real sense an attack 
upon Venice. Nor could she trust the Carraresi, for to 
them in their desire for independence Venice seemed a 
nearer and more dreadful danger than Visconti. So they 
came to take sides against the Republic. Their real oppor- 
tunity occurred in 1354, when Genoa destroyed the Venetian 
fleet at Sapienza and the treason of Marino Falier brought 
confusion upon the city. In that disastrous moment the 
Hungarians claimed the Dalmatian cities ; and others, among 
them the Patriarch of Aquileia, joined them. Carrara 
refused to assist, but secretly sent aid to the Hungarians 
when they besieged Treviso. That was the beginning of 
the end for Carrara. It is true that the peace of Zara, which 
Venice made to gain time, confirmed him in the possession 
of Padua, but that was no more final than was in the 
case of the Boers the Convention of London in 1881. 
Venice saw she must crush Carrara and possess herself of 
Padua if she was safely to fight Genoa; in the future an 
enemy on her flank would be fatal. In this she was right ; 
the whole danger to the city in the great war with Genoa 
came from the co-operation of Padua with the Genoese. 
Francesco Carrara was then lord of Padua. He had been 
already punished by Venice, but gamely made this last wild 
attempt for liberty and independence. He it was who 
blockaded Venice from the mainland while Pietro Doria 
struck at the city. He it was who fed the Genoese at 
Chioggia during that long patience. He it was whom 
Carlo Zeno broke and thus ended the war. 

He was broken, but not done with. It was Genoa only 
who was finally disposed of in that war. Carrara remained 
very powerful on the mainland waiting his opportunity. It 
never came. He tried every way. He built up slowly a 
tariff against Venice, and holding the passes, for he bought 
and possessed himself of them all, he had good hope of her 
ruin. He failed because, like every continental power, he 



36 VENICE AND YENETIA 

was ever in danger from his neighbours. He failed for the 
same reason that Napoleon failed in his attempt on England. 
Behind Napoleon lay the enemy ; behind Carrara lay Visconti 
of Milan. They quarrelled over Vicenza. They had agreed 
it was in the dominion of Padua, but Visconti seized it. 
Carrara turned for aid to Venice. He pointed out many 
things with much eloquence. He described himself as a 
"buffer" necessary to the Republic between herself and 
Visconti. Too late he recognized how necessary Venice 
was to his existence. Visconti also approached Venice; 
he was ready to surrender Treviso and Feltre as the price 
of assistance against Carrara. Venice accepted his offer. 
Nevertheless, when she found herself face to face with 
Visconti, and understood the ambition of the viper of Milan, 
she joined the league Florence had established against him, 
and in 1392 restored the Carraresi to Padua. These things 
remained for exactly ten years, till, in 1402, the House of 
Visconti fell to pieces. After the death of Gian Galeazzo 
Venice had no more need of the Carrara, who, in the con- 
fusion of the Visconti revolution, claimed Vicenza. The 
Duchess of Milan, Visconti's widow, appealed to Venice, who, 
as the price of her help, demanded Bassano, Vicenza, and 
Verona. These terms were accepted. The two Carraresi, 
Jacopo and Francesco, were taken, and in 1405 were 
strangled in prison in Venice. Into their dominion Venice 
entered, and so restored the ancient frontiers of Venetia in 
a State which she ruled till her fall in 1796. 

The State thus formed, whose boundaries were the Alps, 
the Po, the Lago di Garda, the Mincio, and the sea, alone in 
Italy remained stable and firm during some four hundred 
years. Why? For more than one reason, but first because 
Venice held the command of the sea, and was almost till the 
end of that period herself impregnable. That she established 
good government, the best that Italy has ever known since 
the fall of the Empire, goes for much ; that she more than 
any other Italian State inspired the love of her dependent 
cities so that they were loyal to her and ready to fight in 



VENETIA AND VENICE 37 

her behalf, goes for more. But the chief and final cause of 
the endurance of Venice and her dominion was her impreg- 
nable position consequent upon her command of the sea. 
This she won in the fourteenth century, and by the opening 
of the fifteenth she had established herself as one of the 
greatest European States, not to be moved or overthrown 
till, untrue to herself, inwardly rotten and almost defenceless, 
the guns of Napoleon bellowed across the h'do^ and after 
more than a thousand years the Republic fell, stricken from 
the sea, never to rise again. 

There remains upon the vague lagoons, like a ghost upon 
those mysterious waters, a beautiful dead city that we still 
call Venezia. 

The history of Venice that we have thus traced, not indeed 
in detail but with a certain largeness, for the sake of an idea 
rather than for the enumeration of mere facts, divides itself 
easily into two periods, which are very closely marked by the 
wars with Genoa and the sudden advance on ferra Jirma, the 
establishment of Venice as an Italian power, the re-creation of 
Venetia. 

At no time in her thousand years of history did Venice 
make a part of the Western Empire. In this she stood alone 
in all Western Europe, unless, indeed, the thousand similitudes 
she bears to England may appear also in this, for England, too, 
never formally made a part of the refounded Empire of the 
West. Yet both Venice and England ever belonged to the 
Western Church ; they came within its government, and 
equally owed almost everything to that universahty. 

But Venice, as we have seen, looked to the East. Her earliest 
relations were with the Eastern Empire, and though this out- 
look largely remained hers to the very end, yet we find that 
the Genoese war achieved after all chiefly this : that it forced 
her to turn Westward, to become a continental power, and 
thus brought her within the influence of Western thought and 
politics. It is, then, the fourteenth century which marks the 
great turning-point of Venetian history, thought, and art. 

Before the Genoese wars she was chiefly a Byzantine city 



38 VENICE AND YENETIA 

at their close in 1339 she had become mainly European. 
Her advance is to be for the future along the same lines 
as Italy will use ; she will be engaged in the same methods of 
thought, she will experience the same moods and find the 
same means of expression. This becomes clear at once 
in the aspect of Venice herself. Till the beginning of the 
fourteenth century she is Byzantine, her buildings are rather 
Oriental than European, and her greatest church is modelled 
upon S. Sophia in Constantinople. By the close of the 
fourteenth century she is largely Gothic, has indeed under- 
stood that spirit as well as any other Italian city whatsoever, 
and is ready to advance with the rest of Italy into the Renais- 
sance, and to make that return to Rome, without any com- 
punction. Yet a flavour of the East, across the sea, always 
remained with her in a certain exuberance of fancy and orna- 
ment, a delight in bright colours and the expression of rich- 
ness, of wealth, which are like a crimson pattern running at 
hazard through the sombre and precious Roman stuff upon 
which, in fact, she stood. Even in the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries we may see this in the strangely moving 
colour of Palladio's vast churches, in the rhetoric of the Salute, 
so extraordinarily decorative too, in the sheer gesticulation 
against the soft sky of the Gesuiti; above all, in the rosy 
towers full of bells -that everywhere lean over her in the quiet 
Campos like silent Eastern courts, in the miracle of the S. 
Giorgio, so delicately rosy and tipped with a golden angel. 
Yes, she speaks even to the end with a subtle voice, and 
standing as she does, so brittle a thing, on the brink of the 
Adriatic, spoiled by the modern world, and perhaps, ghost as 
she is, even to-morrow to pass away from our world, she seems 
to remind us as a symbol may do — a symbol or a grave — of 
that old dream we once had in which East and West were 
one, that old and precious unity which Rome founded and 
broke asunder, and which — who knows ? — it may be the 
glory and the happiness of our children to create again. 

So much for the city of old. What of the city to-day ? Like 







S. MARIA UELLA SALUTE, VEMCi: 



VENETIA AND VENICE 39 

a vast precious stone sinking into the mud and ooze of her 
lagoons, Venice is to-day vanishing from our earth in the sea 
distance and her lapsing tides. Glorified by our dreams and 
her smouldering, tragic sunsets, she is gradually disappearing 
behind the remotest of horizons. Through her marvellous and 
dying streets the wet sea wind passes like an old forgotten 
melody, and is lost in the desolate lagoons in the white foam 
mist of the sea. Gradually he her immortal lover is gather- 
ing her into his embrace ; soon he will kiss her on the mouth 
and cleanse her from all the abominations that we have made 
her suffer. She was too beautiful for our little day : therefore 
he will surround her with his inviolable silence, his immaculate 
purity, his everlasting strength. 

Is she not vanishing, will she not be lost ? Yet even now, 
just before she is gone, shamed as she is, broken in heart 
and without a soul, she seems indeed almost to illumine the 
sky rather than to receive light from it. How long even as 
we see her can she remain? Already the inevitable decay 
of the piles of white poplar wood, driven into the mud, 
the dredging of the lagoon and the tideway for the huge 
modern ships, the wash and swirl and hurry of the passing 
steamboats up and down the Grand Canal, that was surely 
never meant for them — all have contributed toward the down- 
fall of what was once so majestic and so lovely. And as 
though this were not enough, the new barbarism has thrust 
upon her its peculiar vulgarity and haste, and her sons, 
ready to batten on that they have murdered, eagerly conceive 
for themselves a future in which, for the sake of money, 
great chimneys will take the place of the leaning campanili^ 
vast factories will occupy the foundations of the magical 
palaces, and a huge industrial capital and port, shrouded 
in smoke, clanging with machinery, filthy with mud and 
groaning with misery, will rise where for so long Venice had 
her inviolate throne. 

She remains to us — for how long? She remains for a 
moment while we love her, in the solitude and silence of her 
limitless horizon, in the mysterious loneliness of the wide 



40 VENICE AND VENETIA 

lagoon, in the twilight under the evening sky. Still the 
gondolas at evening steal back from the Lido, like ghosts, 
silently into the city as night descends from the mountains 
far away. Still the stars peer down from an unimaginable 
height, and seem like great golden water-lilies on the waters 
of the lagoon, and everywhere there is a kind of music : 
perhaps it is the weeping of the oar, perhaps the whisper of 
the lagoon grass through which the gondola passes, cleaving 
a disappearing lane as it goes ; perhaps the musical blow of 
the boat itself on the water meeting the south wind coming 
over the sand dunes from the sea ; and at evening this music 
only becomes more distinct, resolving itself into singing heard 
in the distance to the accompaniment of mandohn and guitar. 
Under the unfathomable serenity of her sky she still draws 
breath at evening, but how languidly ! Does she pray then in 
the twilight that she may be relieved at last of the dis- 
orderly throng of sensible things? Hers has been one 
of those sublime moments that have no return. Does she 
remember it when under a full moon all her domes are 
glistening with silver ? Does she look longingly far away over 
the lagoon, where that path of pearl stretches away to the 
lidi and the sea ? Far away from her thoughts now is all that 
lives in the voices and mandolins of the gondoliers. What is 
it to her that the Piazza is full of men and women whom she 
knows not, or even that in the Salute they have ceased singing 
Compline ? She is thinking of her husband the Sea, and of her 
destined bridal bed. Let us pray that still beautiful, still the 
most lovely city of our world, she will in a moment be lost to 
us, that he her husband will not greet her as less than a queen. 
All the spoils of the splendid ships, all the beauty of his prey, 
all that in the centuries he has stolen from us, all the sunshine 
he has stored in his deep, indestructible caverns, he will lavish 
upon her, and every night he will deck her with innumerable 
stars. Ropes of seaweed, opalescent and rare, will sway like 
beautiful snakes in her hair, banners woven by the secret sway 
of the sea shall float from the tall campanili ; on her left hand 
shall flash the mighty ring; and over her heart a red and 



YENETIA AND VENICE 41 

burning sun shall flame. Thus in the silence of that lucent 
world the sea shall make her his own at last. 

Thus when I evoke her image does she appear to me 
enthroned on her piles sinking into the mud, encircled by 
the sea. And believing, as I do, that one day a great cry will 
go up for all that she was, for all that she meant, for her 
beauty and her splendour and her strength, when it is too 
late, I desire nothing better than to be remembered as one 
who loved her and all that for which she stood, and who hated 
with bitterness and despair that which destroyed her, which 
her spirit will one day everlastingly vanquish. 



II 

S. MARK'S 

THE history of Venice, perhaps the most interesting of 
any city State save that of Rome itself, is, as we have 
seen, divided into two main periods — ^^the Byzantine and the 
Italian ; and if we pursued our inquiry a little further and a 
little more closely we should, of course, find the Italian period 
itself, subdivided, here too, into the same cycles that we recog- 
nize in the history, in the thought, and in the art of every 
city, not only in the Italian peninsula but in the Western 
Empire — I mean the Gothic period, the Renaissance, and the 
Baroque. Very fortunately for the student, as it happens, all 
these various moods of the Venetian soul are quite perfectly 
expressed in those buildings which for ourselves, as for our 
fathers, may be said to stand as the symbol of the city, to be 
for the mind's eye Venice itself — I mean the Cathedral of 
S. Mark, the Palace of the Doges, the Piazza and the 
Piazzetta. We shall therefore take these in order, finding the 
Byzantine city summed up and expressed once for all in 
S. Marco, the Gothic in the Doge's Palace, the Renaissance 
and the Baroque in the Piazza and Piazzetta, where, in fact, 
the whole development and decline of the Renaissance may 
be studied more satisfactorily and completely than anywhere 
else in the city. 

We shall begin, then, with San Marco, and for these reasons. 

But before we make any examination of the church, it may be 

42 



S. MARK'S 43 

as well to decide what exactly the Church of San Marco is. 
And to begin with let us say at once that during all the thou- 
sand years of the Republic it was never the Cathedral of 
Venice ; it only became the seat of the Bishop and Patriarch 
in 1807. For in this, too, as in so many other things, Venice 
is like England — that the seat of her Archbishop was not the 
capital, but always a provincial city. Till 145 1 it was estab- 
lished at Grado, where the old Patriarchate of Aquileia was 
set up. Ecclesiastically Venice was entirely dependent upon 
Grado, just as England is and always has been ecclesiastically 
dependent not on London but on Canterbury. From 1091 
till 145 1 a Suffragan Bishop ruled Venice from S. Pietro di 
Castello, but in 145 1 the seat of the Patriarchate was removed 
from Grado to S. Pietro di Castello, where it endured till, 
eleven years after the fall of the Republic, Napoleon had it 
removed to S. Marco. 

But if the Church of S. Marco was not the Cathedral of 
Venice, what was it? It was the chapel of the Doges.^ What 
Westminster Abbey was to the Crown and realm of England 
that the Church of S. Marco was to the Doge and Republic of 
Venice. It was the Doge's chapel, the church, as we have 
seen, where he was obliged to take the oath on his election ; 
it stood, too, in much the same relation both theoretically 
and materially to the Palace of the Doges as Westminster 
Abbey did to the King's Palace; moreover, it contained, 
as Westminster did, for centuries the chief shrine of the 
State, the tomb of S. Mark. Yet S. Mark was by no means 
the first or only patron of Venice any more than was S. Edward 
of England. Indeed, he was the latest, as was the Confessor, 
and, like him, he never stood alone as the patron of the State, 
though he may often have seemed to do so in the popular 
imagination. P'or, like S. Edward, S. Mark seemed to per- 
sonify the patriotism and the achievement of a people, and to 
point the way to a future that, like ourselves, the Venetians 
won in his name. 

In S. Mark's, then, we have the great State Church of 
' In the Chronicles, " Sancti Marci Ducalis Cappella." 



44 VENICE AND VENETIA 

Venice — a secular and official building if you will, as West- 
minster is a Royal building, in which all the splendour of the 
State, its strength, health, and wealth are expressed. Even 
the dedication to S. Mark is a State affair, a political rather 
than an ecclesiastical manifesto. For the patron saints of 
Venice, always numerous as we have seen,^ and wholly eccle- 
siastical in their appointment, were early half forgotten in the 
continual movement of the central government from Grado to 
Torcello, from Torcello to Malamocco. It was only when 
the Republic finally established itself on Rialto that S. 
Theodore, the martyr and patron of that island, came to 
be regarded as the tutelar of Venice, which in some sort 
he remained to the end. Even in the ninth century a church 
under his dedication is said to have occupied the site of 
S. Marco, and for long after that was destroyed his body lay 
in the old Scuola di S. Teodoro, near the Church of S. Sal- 
vatore, while even to-day, as we know, his statue standing upon 
the crocodile, his symbol, adorns one of the two great pillars 
in the Piazzetta. 

S. Theodore was the first patron of Rialto, of what later 
became the centre of the city of Venice ; it does not seem to 
have been till about 829 that S. Mark actually became the 
patron. Some time before that, however, as we may believe, 
the Venetians had recalled the legend that the Evangelist was 
Bishop of Aquileia, and was indeed shipwrecked upon their 
shores, and there heard that voice full of all sweetness and 
consolation, " Pax tibi Marce, EvangeHsta Meus." 

" Mark the Evangelist," says Voragine, "was of the kindred 
of the Levites, and was a priest. And when he was christened 
he was godson of S. Peter the apostle, and therefore he went 
with him to Rome. When S. Peter preached there the Gospel, 
the good people of Rome prayed S. Mark that he would put 
the Gospel in writing like as S. Peter had preached. Then he 
at their request wrote, and showed it to his master, S. Peter, to 
examine ; and when S. Peter had examined it, and saw that it 
contained the very truth, he approved it and commanded that 

^ See supra, p. 20. 



S. MARK'S 45 

it should be read at Rome. And then S. Peter seeing S. 
Mark constant in the faith, he sent him into Aquilegia for to 
preach the faith of Jesu Christ, where he preached the word 
of God and did many miracles, and converted innumerable 
multitudes of people to the faith of Christ, and wrote also to 
them the Gospel, like as he did to them of Rome, which is to 
this day in the Church of Aquilegia, and with great devotion 
kept, 

" After this it happed that S. Mark led with him to Rome a 
burgess of that same city whom he had converted to the 
faith, named Ermagoras, brought him to S. Peter, and prayed 
him that he would sacre him bishop of Aquilegia, and so he 
did. Then this Ermagoras when he was bishop he governed 
much holily the church, and at last the paynims martyred 
him. Then S. Peter sent S. Mark into Alexandria, whereas 
he preached first the word of God. . . . Now it happened 
on Easter Day, when S. Mark sang Mass there, they 
assembled all and put a cord about his neck, and after 
drew him throughout the city, and said : Let us draw the 
bubale to the place of bucale. And the blood ran upon the 
stones and his flesh was torn piecemeal that it lay upon the 
pavement all bebled. After this they put him in prison, where 
an angel came and comforted him, and after came Our Lord 
for to visit and comfort him, saying : Pax tibi Marce, Evan- 
gelista Meus ; Peace be to thee, Mark, Mine Evangelist ! be 
not in doubt, for I am with thee and shall deliver thee. And 
in the morn they put the cord about his neck and drew him 
like as they had done before, and cried : Draw the bubale. 
And when they had drawn he thanked God and said : Into 
Thy hands. Lord, I commend my spirit, and he thus saying 
died. Then the paynims would have burnt his body, but the 
air began suddenly to change and to hail, lighten, and thunder 
in such wise that every man enforced him to flee and left 
there the holy body alone. Then came the Christian men 
and bare it away and buried it in the church with great joy, 
honour, and reverence. This was in the year of Our Lord 57, 
in the time that Nero was Emperor." 



46 VENICE AND VENETIA 

There the body remained, according to "The Golden 
Legend," till the year 466, according to the Venetian j 
chroniclers till about the year 820.^ In the latter year, as 
we may suppose, a decree had been made by the Eastern 
Emperor, which the Doge had been forced to acknowledge, 
that no intercourse should take place even for purposes of 
commerce between the Christian powers and the unbelievers. 
Here I think we have the source of the vast popularity of and 
enthusiasm for S. Mark in Venice, and the true reason why he 
became, as did S. Edward the Confessor for us, a sort of 
national symbol, his name a warcry, and his shrine the centre 
of the State. 

It will be obvious to anyone who has followed the outline 
of Venetian history in the previous chapter that Venice was 
before all else a commercial State, a city of merchants, and 
that since she depended both upon the East and upon the 
West for markets, it was one of her greatest political neces- 
sities to keep herself independent of both the Eastern and 
the Western Emperors. The decree of Leo V must have 
threatened her very existence, and she must often have 
reminded herself that she owed him no allegiance and that 
it was but a political necessity which forced her to obey his 
decree. Therefore when two Venetian seamen, Buono da 
Malamocco and Rustico da Torcello, disobeyed the Imperial 
order, fitted out a ship with stuff for the Eastern markets, set 
sail secretly for Alexandria, sold their goods, and brought back 
to Venice the body of S. Mark,^ the whole city and State 
could not but see in such a miraculous good fortune the 
establishment once and for all of their independence of the 

^ The two accounts agree in most particulars save_that of date. They 
both agree in naming "the Emperor Leo." But there was a Leo I 
Emperor in 466 and a Leo V Emperor in 820, 

'^ They are said to have bribed the Pagan keepers of the tomb in Alex- 
andria to sell them the body. And having it they placed it in a cart and 
covered it with the carcases of swine, knowing that the Mohammedans 
would not then examine their load. So they brought their rich booty 
aboard. 



S. MARK'S 47 

Emperor of their absolute right to freedom of trade. The effect 
at any rate was magical. S. Mark deposed S. Theodore, and 
became then once and for all the symbol of the city, the war- 
cry of the Republic, the foundation, as it were, of all that 
was most vital in Venice. 

We of the modern world cannot, I think, allow ourselves to 
see in the advent of S. Mark to Venice mere chance and 
good fortune. Just there I think we uncover one of those 
profound and even prophetic acts which our own country has 
so often known how to perform. If it were not the Republic 
herself who sent Buono da Malamocco and Rustico da 
Torcello on that adventure, then indeed the splendour of 
S. Edward's shrine was of pure devotion, the riches heaped 
upon it, the everlasting glory and beauty of the church which 
it created is but a folly, and the graves of the great kings 
which stand everywhere within its shadow are only there by 
chance. But the shrine of S. Mark, as we know, like the 
shrine of S. Edward, became the rallying-place of a nation, 
of a nation beaten and enslaved in England that for more 
than two hundred years looked with a wild regret upon 
the holy tomb of the last of the English kings, of a 
nation thwarted and in fear in Venice that in a great 
and bold adventure had found itself and founded for ever 
in the new grave of the Evangelist its own freedom, glory, 
and riches. 

I say this cannot be doubted. Note how the Republic 
received the holy body, the fruit of its defiance of the 
Emperor. All the people of Venice, we read, came down 
to the lagoon, and the noblest of Venice bore upon their 
shoulders the priceless burden, bearing it within the chapel 
of the Ducal Palace with cries from island to island, from 
Grado even to Malamocco, " Viva San Marco ! " the new 
battle-cry of the Republic. Such was the coming of S. 
Mairk to Venice, and ever after the Republic bore as arms 
the Lion and the Book, and she wrote therein these words 
as her motto, " Pax tibi Marce, Evangelista Meus." 

Nor was this all. The old church of S. Teodoro, which 



48 VENICE AND YENETIA 

had stood where S. Mark's stands to-day, was pulled down, 
and a new church was built as a shrine for the Evangelist. 
This new church was burnt down in 976 ; it cannot have 
stood in any case much more than one hundred years. In 
that fire, it is said by many, the body of S. Mark perished. 
Whether, indeed, this were so or not matters little. S. Mark 
had fulfilled his mission. It was nevertheless a necessity to 
rediscover the body, and this was duly accomplished under 
Doge Vital Falier (1085-1096).^ 

It was towards the close of the tenth century that the great 
church we see to-day — the greatest Byzantine building that 
remains in our possession in Europe, for the Pagans still hold 
S. Sophia — was begun. For near a hundred years it was built 
stone by stone, pillar by pillar, capital by capital, dome by 
dome, by Byzantine artists. And substantially what we see 
to-day is that Byzantine church. It is true the decorations 
are for the most part far later work, that the pinnacles, for 
instance, belong to another and later mood of the city and of 
Europe, but in its main strength S. Mark's is still a Greek 
church, the work of Greek builders, an alien in Western Europe 
— a church of the Eastern Empire. 

/ S. Mark's, then, belongs to and sums up Byzantine Venice, 

" that far-off heroic city looking eastward to the rising sun, in 

the shadow of Constantinople. What we see of later work 

^ " The place in which the body of the holy Evangelist had rested was 
lost, so that Doge Vital Falier was ignorant of the place of the venerable 
deposit. This was no little affliction not only to the pious Doge but to all 
the citizens and people ; so that at last, moved by confidence in the Divine 
mercy, they determined to implore, with prayer and fasting, the mani- 
festation of so great a treasure, which did not now depend upon any 
human effort. A general fast being therefore proclaimed and a solemn 
procession appointed for the 25th day of June, while they assembled in the , 
church interceded with God in fervent prayers for the desired boon, they ; 
beheld with as much amazement as joy a slight shaking in the marbles of a 
pillar [where the altar of the Cross is now] which presently falling to the 
earth, exposed to the view of the rejoicing people the chest of bronze in 
which the body of the Evangelist was laid." So far the chronicler. 
There is no possibility of doubting the main facts. Even Ruskin accepts 
them [cf. " Stones of Venice," vol. ii, cap. iv, " S. Mark's "). 




ii ^ 



W s 



S. MARK'S 49 

there, however, is, though precious, expressing the Hfe of the 
city, really but a kind of vegetation — a sign of age upon it. 
Those pinnacles, those pointed gables of the fourteenth 
century, reflect the Gothic period of the city, then newly 
Italian, as certainly as the Doge's Palace can do, while a later 
and less noble mood has left its marks upon the church in the 
obtrusive and flagrant mosaics (all save one) of the fagade, 
works of the Baroque period, when all that was really Venice 
was wounded to death and the city was entering that second 
childhood which lasted so long, till, in fact, the voice of 
Napoleon struck her suddenly at last into silence. All this 
we shall be content, more than content, to ignore, setting our- 
selves instead to discover if we can the secret of this so 
strangely lovely Byzantine church, whose character after all is 
but brought out more strongly for us by those alien ornaments, 
which I, for one, will never wish away, since they add, as it 
were, a certain salt to what must always remain in Western 
Europe and for us an alien loveliness. 

And let us begin our examination of a building so magnified 
by fame that the world itself would not seem the same without 
it by setting down our more general impression of it. 

If S. Mark's strikes us first by the Byzantine character of its 
architecture, its crowd of domes, the vast width of its fagade 
in comparison with its height, it impresses us next, I think, by 
its strangely lovely colour, the gold and blue and green and 
red of its mosaics, colour which changes with every change of 
the sky, which is one thing in the blaze of a summer morning 
and quite another on an autumn afternoon after rain, when 
the sky is still full of cloud and the wind comes in melancholy 
gusts out of the pale gold of a watery sunset. I do not know 
under the influence of which sky, or at what hour of the day 
or of the night the church is most beautiful ; I only know it is 
always beautiful : in the golden summer heat or standing amid 
the winter snow, or in the spring or late autumn when the 
Piazza has been flooded by the gale in the Adriatic ; but I 
think I love it best when the sky clears in the evening, after a 
day of rain in early autumn, when some delicate and pure 



so VENICE AND VENETIA 

light has suddenly fallen upon the world, and the great fagade 
seems for a moment to be made of pearl and mother-of-pearl, 
to reflect every colour and shadow of a beauty that belongs to 
the sea. Then, as the pigeons soar in many clouds about the 
great Piazza, empty at that hour after the rain, Venice herself 
seems to me to look out of that marvellous face as though 
recognizing in that hour something peculiarly her own, some- 
thing that in all our thoughts of her, her languid beauty, her 
wealth and strength and splendour, we have always unaccount- 
ably missed : the wide and sad horizons of the sea, the vague 
motion of vast waters, the coming of night, the emptiness, the 
silence. At such an hour in the flagstones of the Piazza, still wet 
after the day's rain, the great fagade backed by its domes, the 
flagstaves that stand before it on the pavement, are reflected 
there as a ship might be at the same mysterious hour in 
the grey-blue sea; it is as though some vast ship, only by 
conduct of some star, made her way upon the waters : a ship 
of pearl in which a thousand vague colours burn and fade 
and are merged into the grey twilight into the night and it 
is gone. 

It is not in such an hour as that after a day of rain that the 
many will see S. Marco : they desire, and how rightly, a 
morning of sun, when nothing subtle or vague is to be found 
in the splendour and glitter of the great church which then 
greets them with an imperishable smile. In that morning hour 
you are struck, I think, chiefly by the splendour of the build- 
ing—and it is very splendid — and perhaps after a time by the 
extraordinary variety, both without and within, of a building 
that is after all not very large. S. Mark's is but 250 feet long, 
and at its widest but 168 feet. It is built in the shape of a 
Greek cross, and is duly set east and west, north and south, 
its eastern arm being structurally divided into three parts, 
each with semicircular apse, of which that in the midst con- 
taining the High Altar projects further than the two beside it, 
originally containing the Chapel of S. Peter on the Gospel 
side, the Chapel of S. Clement on the Epistle side. 

This simple design, a cross of equal arms, is, however. 



S. MARK'S 51 

complicated and confused in any view of the church from 
without by the vast Atrium which surrounds the church up to 
its first story on three sides, the north, the west, and the 
south. The Atrium, which thus encloses the church on three 
sides, is, as you find at once on entering it, by no means a 
part of the church proper, for it is not necessary to uncover 
there. It is open in its west and northern parts, but its 
southern part has been screened off into two chapels, which 
are entered from the church itself, the Cappella Zen, into which 
one looks from the Atrium, and the Baptistery. 

Such is the main plan of the building, the church proper 
having, as has been said, the shape of a Greek cross. Within, 
this Greek cross is roughly divided into five minor parts — the 
nave, the two transepts, the sanctuary, corresponding to four 
arms of equal length ; in the midst, where all these arms 
meet, there is, as it were, a square central portion, which, 
like each of the four arms, is covered with a dome. The 
nave and transepts are each divided into three aisles by 
splendid Byzantine arcades, bearing open galleries. The 
eastern arm is also divided into three parts ; the main central 
part, consisting of the sanctuary proper, is closed on the west 
by a great open screen, on which are set fourteen statues of 
S. Mark, the Blessed Virgin, and the Twelve Apostles. At 
the east it is closed by a semicircular apse, and on the north 
and south it is divided from the chapels originally of S. Peter 
and of S. Clement respectively, by splendid Byzantine arcades. 
Each of these chapels is closed on the east by a semicircular 
apse, and the whole of this eastern arm is raised above the 
level of the rest of the church. 

Having thus obtained, as it were, a main plan of the church 
in its several parts both within and without, let us consider it 
in more detail. And before attempting to describe or explain 
to ourselves this wonderful building as a work of art, let us 
consider it for a moment as a church pure and simple, the 
religious expression of the Catholic Faith as Venice and the 
Government of Venice understood it, and as the shrine of 
the patron saint of the Republic. 



52 VENICE AND YENETIA 

We have before us a building in the shape of a great cross, 
whose arms are of nearly equal length, and this cross is sur- 
rounded on three sides on its lower story by a vast outer 
court or Atrium. Why? 

The Church of S. Mark is the Byzantine or Greek form of 
the basilica, it is the Greek translation of the most ancient 
form of Christian church, which was modelled from the old 
Roman court of justice, and which can, I suppose, best be 
realized to-day in S. Clemente in Rome. That too has a sort of 
Atrium, but its necessity in a Christian church is not at first 
obvious to us of this late day. The symbolism of the cruciform 
church is easily understood, I suppose, even by us ; but that 
only emphasizes our question. Why spoil it by adding an 
Atrium ? 

The origin of the Atrium, in fact, is far from clear; it 
seems to have been Eastern, and has there, indeed, developed 
into the mosque of the Moslems. But though the origin of 
this outer court, which some have thought represents the 
Forum, in which the Pagan basilicas were situate, remains 
far from clear, the history and tradition of the Church do not 
leave us in doubt as to its use. The Atrium, without the 
church, was the appointed gathering-place of the penitents 
and the catechumens and of such unbaptized persons as 
might wish by any means to gain admission after trial and 
examination to the body of the Faithful, the company of 
Christ, the Church Militant here on earth. These persons in 
the earlier ages were not admitted into the church, they 
waited without. Later the full rigour of this custom was 
relaxed, and the catechumens were admitted to the church at 
certain times and for certain parts of the Mass and the Divine 
Office, but they were obliged to retire to the Atrium, for 
instance, after the Gospel at Mass. 

To make the matter quite clear, let us imagine ourselves in 
the Atrium of such a church as S. Mark's on Holy Saturday, 
the Vigil of Easter, some eight or nine hundred years ago. 
At the hour of None, about three in the afternoon, the clergy 
have repaired to the church, and the greatest vigil of the 



S. MARK'S 53 

Christian year, a vigil that even then was growing rare, and is 
now practically not kept at all, is about to begin. The 
church is crowded with the Faithful, the Doge and the great 
officers of the Republic are in their stalls, in the Atrium are 
assembled a crowd of persons, men, women, and children, 
catechumens, who during the forty days of Lent have con- 
tinually gathered there, seeking admission to the church. 
The various scrutinies are over, the teaching, examinations, 
and catechizings are finished, they are about to be admitted 
into Christ's flock. 

Within the church porch the new fire is kindled ; the first 
words of hope after the terror and silence of Good Friday 
are heard by the throng of postulants. Lumen Christie and 
the response, as though one dared to breathe again, Deo 
gratias. The spark thus struck from the flint and greeted so 
thankfully in the porch without, lights the Paschal candle and 
the whole church, the new fire is blessed and the incense 
kindled ; in the magnificent tones of the Preface the deacon — 
it is the only time he may use that chant — proclaims Easter to 
the people, whose hearts thrill to his Exsultet. From the 
Gospel Ambo the Paschal candle burns. Joy is come into 
the church, and without in the Atrium the priest is performing 
the preparatory rites over the catechumens. He signs all 
upon the forehead with the sign of the cross, from each is 
Satan exorcised. Touching their ears, he says, " Be ye 
opened " ; touching the nostrils, " Breathe ye in sweet 
fragrance." Thereafter he anoints each catechumen on the 
breast and between the shoulders with the oil of catechumens, 
made ready against to-day at the White Mass of Holy Thurs- 
day, receiving in turn the promise of each to renounce the 
devil and all his works, the pomps and vanities of this wicked 
world. Thus in the Atrium the catechization proceeds ; within 
the church are read the Twelve Prophecies, followed by a 
collect and often by a responsary, chaunted to the wonderful 
melody of the Tract. These splendours the catechumens 
hear, moving at last in procession with the rest of the people, 
though separate from them, towards the Baptistery. There 



54 VENICE AND VENETIA 

the font having been newly blessed, the Paschal candle, the 
symbol of Christ, having been plunged thrice into the holy 
water, the Holy Oils having been mingled therein, the Bishop 
receives the catechumens one by one, the men and boys first, 
the women and girls after, and, each stripped to the waist, is 
received into Christ's Church, under the sign of water. Then 
all newly clad in white proceed in order for their confirmation. 
Led by their sponsors, they come one by one to the Bishop, 
who signs each with the Holy Chrism. Then in glad proces- 
sion, singing the Litany of the Saints, they return to the 
church a single family, and now in the earliest dawn hear the 
Mass of Easter, the catechumens there making their first 
communion. 

I have explained at some length this great ceremony, which 
belonged more particularly to the Vigils of Easter and of 
Pentecost, because it will help us easily to understand what 
the Atrium was for, as well as many things otherwise inexplic- 
able which are expressed in the wonderful decoration of its 
roof. The Atrium, as we have seen — as we may see any day 
we enter it — is not part of the church proper ; it is but an 
outer or forecourt of it, it is but preliminary to it, and is 
inexplicable if it were to stand alone. It fulfils, in fact, pre- 
cisely the function of the old dispensation to the new, of the 
Old to the New Testament. In it there is but one prayer 
possible to man — Kyrie Eleison. And, in fact, when we come 
to examine it in detail, we shall find that the whole of its 
decoration is concerned with the Old Testament, and that it 
stands in the same relation to the church in its symbolism as 
that does to the Gospels. It is, if you will — and remembering 
the mosaics of S. Maria Maggiore we may well call it so — the 
synagogue, as the greater building itself is the church. 

This greater building, the church proper, is here in S. 
Mark's approached from the Atrium by three doors in the 
inner facade — the door of S. Mark in the centre, which leads 
straight up the nave to the High Altar and the tomb of the 
Evangelist ; the door of S . Peter's, on the left or Gospel side, 
which leads straight to the altar of S. Peter ; and the door of 



S. MARK'S 55 

S. Clement on the right or Epistle side, which leads straight to 
the altar of S. Clement. A fourth door leads out of the 
Atrium into the north transept, where of old it led to the 
altar of S. John, now the altar of Our Lady. We will ignore 
this door, and with it the two transepts for the moment, and 
confine ourselves to the main church, which, seen as I have 
described it, from the three great doors, is like to three 
churches side by side, with an altar at the head of each, thus : 
the door of S. Peter, leading through the whole length of the 
north aisle to the altar of S. Peter, opens on one church ; the 
door of S. Mark, leading through the whole central nave to 
the High Altar, opens on another ; and the door of S. Clement, 
leading through the whole south aisle to the altar of S. Clement, 
is a third. 

Taking the church thus we shall find that even as the 
decoration of the Atrium is devoted to the Old Testament, 
so the decoration here is devoted to the New. We shall find 
more, for we shall see that the whole of the central church 
entered by the door of S. Mark, and leading to his tomb, is 
devoted to the Birth, Life, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension 
of Our Lord ; that the two other churches, as it were, that lie 
side by side the central one, including the transepts, which we 
shall now reckon in each according to their position, the 
northern with the church of S. Peter, the southern with the 
church of S. Clement, are concerned with the Acts of 
the Apostles and the Saints ; and that even as structurally the 
church is made one in that square central space under the 
central dome, so symbolically in its decorations the parts are 
here joined and all is unified, for on either side the central 
space the mosaics speak of the ministry of Christ, and lead 
thus logically to the acts of His apostles and servants. 

So much for the material and mystical construction of the 
church. When that is well grasped the examination of the 
church in detail becomes a matter of delight. 

First, however, let us consider the facades. These consist 
everywhere of two parts as seen from the Piazzas, the facade 
of the Atrium reaching to the platform at the first story and 



56 ' VENICE AND YENETIA 

the upper part of the true facade of the church proper. This 
is obvious at once as we gaze on the great western front from 
the Piazza. The balcony, on which are set the mighty bronze 
horses of Nero, is the roof of the Atrium ; below it stands the 
false fagade, the fagade of the Atrium, while behind the 
horses rises the true fagade of the church. 

The lower, or false fagade, consists of five great arches, 
two of equal size on either side the great central arch, the 
whole being flanked at each end by a smaller irregular arch. 

The great central arch contains the beautiful main door- 
way into the Atrium ; in its lunette is a modern (1836) mosaic 
of the Last judgment. On either side this central arch are 
two smaller arches ; the first, on the right, contains the door- 
way into the Atrium facing the door of S. Clement into the 
church, the second contains a window looking into the chapel 
of S. Zen ; the first, on the left, contains a doorway into the 
Atrium facing the door of S. Peter into the church, the second 
a door into the northern part of the Atrium opposite the door 
of S. John into the left transept of the church. These four 
arches contain mosaics of the translation of the body of 
S. Mark from Alexandria to Venice. 

Beginning on the right, we see in the first arch the body 
taken from the church in Alexandria ; placed in a basket 
covered with vine leaves ; the Saracens examine it and refuse 
to touch it, thinking it to be pork. In the second arch we 
see the arrival of the ship with its precious burden in Venice ; 
the body is received on the Piazzetta by a procession of clergy 
and people, and is borne ashore. All these mosaics date 
from the middle of the seventeenth century, when the original 
thirteenth century works were ruthlessly destroyed to make 
way for these utterly feeble usurpers. 

In the first arch, to the right of the central doorway, we see 
the body received by the Doge and officers of the Republic. 
This is a work of the eighteenth century, and we are only 
aware, perhaps, how feeble it is when we compare it with the 
majestic and splendid work beside it in the last arch, the only 
mosaic of the thirteenth century remaining on the fagade. 



S. MARK'S 57 

There we see the body borne in procession to its shrine, this 
very church. The beauty and interest of this mosaic can 
scarcely be exaggerated, for we see in it the fagade of the 
church of S. Marco as it appeared in the thirteenth century, 
the great bronze horses in place, the lunette of the great 
central doorway filled, not as it is to-day by the feeble faith 
and achievement of the seventeenth century, but a masterpiece 
of a far earlier age, earlier than the thirteenth century, a half 
figure of Our Lord in glory, His right hand raised in blessing. 
The other lunettes are empty ; if we would know how the 
thirteenth century filled them we must consult Bellini's picture 
in the Accademia. Two ecclesiastics, apparently a bishop and 
an abbot, bear the casket in which the body of the Evangelist 
lies, to the right stand the Doge and his officers, to the left a 
crowd of emperors, kings, queens, and princes, perhaps repre- 
sentative of all the countless royalties who had visited the 
shrine when the mosaic was designed. 

We now turn from the mosaics to consider the great reliefs 
set in the face of this lower fagade between the arches. On 
either side of the great arch we find S. Theodore and 
S. George, two ancient protectors of the Republic, seated on 
faldstools. Beyond these, on either side, is an Annuncia- 
tion, the Madonna with her arms uplifted in the Byzantine 
manner. All these reliefs are of the thirteenth century. The 
two beyond them at either end of the fagade are Pagan works, 
though possibly as late as the sixth century ; they represent 
two labours of Hercules, and are certainly spoil of war. 

Such, with the infinitely lovely clusters and groups of 
columns of various marbles which everywhere go to support 
the five main arches and the two porticos in a double story, 
are the chief features of the lower western fagade. Its details 
are innumerable, and often unmatched in loveliness. Consider, 
for instance, the single " lily capitalled " column that supports 
the little portico at the northern extremity of this western 
fagade ; consider the details of each doorway and arch, the 
sculpture there, the beauty of the pillars and their capitals, 
the reliefs pf the months and the handicrafts and the prophets 



58 VENICE AND VENETIA 

in the vaults of the main archway, the variety and perfection 
of work that is as far beyond our power to execute to-day as is 
the understanding of that spirit which achieved it. 

Above the strength and splendour of this lower fagade rises 
like some marvellous chant the glory of the upper or true face 
of the church, fronted by the four great horses of gilded 
bronze over the main gateway. The disposition of this upper 
fagade is similar to the lower ; it too consists of four arches, 
their lunettes filled with mosaics set about a central main 
arch, here filled with glass and forming the western window of 
the church. Before this window, on the platform that is the 
roof of the Atrium, stand the golden horses of Nero. These 
are the spoil of war ; they are the trophies of the capture of 
Constantinople by the Doge Enrico Dandolo at the head of 
the Crusade in 1204. For some they are Greek works of the 
school of Lysippus, and whether Greek or Roman, they are 
part of the quadriga that adorned the triumphal arch of Nero, 
and later that of Trajan in Rome, which Constantine the 
Apostate took to Byzantium to give lustre to his new capital. 
There the podesta Zen, whose chapel we shall consider later, 
found them when he held Constantinople for Venice in 1204. 
He sent them to her as spoil, and they were set up as we see 
them now. There they remained till another Emperor, 
Napoleon I, in 1797 carried them off once more, to adorn his 
capital, to decorate the triumphal arch he set up in the Place 
du Carrousel. In 181 5, however, they were returned to 
Venice by the Emperor Francis I, into whose hands Venice 
had fallen. 

The great central arch of this upper fagade is filled, as has 
been said already, by the western window of the church ; the 
two arches on either side each have a small window, but their 
lunettes are filled with mosaics of the life of Christ. The 
subjects begin at the extreme left with the Descent from the 
Cross, then follow the Descent into Hades, the Resurrection, 
and the Ascension ; they are works of the seventeenth century 
similar to those in the lunettes of the lower or false fagade. 
The false gables over each arch, the pinnacles between them 



S. MARK S, VENICE 



S. MARK'S 59 

and the statues, had no place in the original Byzantine fagades, 
but are additions, picturesque but unhappy, of the late Gothic 
manner of the fifteenth century. 

Turning now to the northern facades in the Piazza dei 
Leoni, we find the same division as in the great west front — 
that is to say, the lower fagade is that of the Atrium, the upper 
that of the church. Broken by the thrust of the transept, the 
lower fa9ade is covered with various reliefs which seem to 
have no connexion the one with the other, while the upper 
or true fagade is carved with work mainly or wholly decorative. 
The door into the Atrium, the Porta dei Fiori, is Gothic in 
character, with, however, more than a suggestion of the East. 

The same arrangement of false and true fagade meets us on 
the south side of the church, where before the beautiful open 
portico stands the Pietra del Bando, the low red pillar of 
marble from which the Laws of the Republic were declared. 
The two square carved pillars beyond it are Byzantine, and 
came as spoil from the Church of S. Saba at S. Jean d' Acre ; 
they were taken from the Genoese in 1256 by Lorenzo 
Tiepolo. 

Standing back in the Piazzetta we see the whole of this 
south front, perhaps the most beautiful, and certainly, in its 
upper part, the richest fagade of the church. The two pierced 
screens of the upper fagade, the little arch between them with 
its famous mosaic of the Madonna, before which the two lamps 
that have been lighted every night for hundreds of years still 
burn, are worthy of this, the sea-front of S. Mark's. Nor can we 
fail to delight in the jutting angle of the Treasury, with its 
ancient marbles and fine porphyry relief of four figures 
embracing in pairs, which is also spoil from S. Jean d' Acre. 

So much for the outside of the church, which in its richness 
and colour has no equal in Europe. We now turn to the 
interior and first to the Atrium. 

I said that this was built for the unbaptized and the 
penitents, persons either outside or temporarily exiled from 
Christ's Church. For this reason its mosaics are wholly 
devoted to the Old Testament story, to the life of man 



6o VENICE AND VENETIA 

before Christ had come to redeem him. One enters the 
Atrium, of course, by the beautiful main door in the western 
fagade. Coming thus into it, you face the door of S. Mark 
with its great lunette filled with a sixteenth-century mosaic 
of the Evangelist after a design by Titian. Beneath, in 
the arches, are early mosaics of the Madonna and six Apostles 
and under them the four Evangelists. It is not, however, with 
these we are at present concerned, but with the work in the 
Atrium proper^ which begins in the cupola nearest the Piazzetta 
and the sea. 

Here we see in mosaics of the thirteenth century the 
beginning of the history of the world and of man, their creation 
and their fall. Then the story is continued past the door of 
S. Clement with the birth of Cain and Abel, their sacrifices 
and the murder of Abel, and the curse of Cain, furthest from 
the church. The story is continued with the history of Noah, 
the building of the Ark, the Flood, and return of the dove 
with the olive branch, the sacrifice of Noah and the re- 
occupation of the earth. Later Noah plants a vineyard, is 
overcome by drunkenness, is seen in his shame by Ham, 
is covered by Shem and Japhet; Ham is cursed and Noah 
dies. Then Babel is built — as it were the clock-tower of 
Venice — and the tongues of men are confounded by the Lord 
in glory with His legions of angels. By the door of S. Peter the 
story is continued with the history of Abraham, who is sent by 
God out of Ur ; in Sodom Lot is made prisoner, while 
Abraham and Melchisedech meet. Then Abraham encounters 
the king of Sodom and Sarah brings her handmaid Hagar to 
him. Hagar flees to the wilderness, is comforted by an angel, 
and Ishmael is born and circumcized. Abraham receives the 
three Strangers and serves them while Sarah laughs. Isaac is 
born and circumcized. For some reason not quite clear this 
cupola is borne by the four greater prophets. 

The story is continued into the northern part of the Atrium 
with the history of Joseph, which occupies three cupolas and 
their parts. In the last cupola we come to the history of 
Moses, that prototype of Our Lord: "as Moses lifted up the 



S. MAKK'S 6i 

serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be 
lifted up." 

Entering the church by the great door of S. Mark, just that 
is in fact what the catechumen would first see; for looking 
back as of old custom to salute the sun as he entered the 
church, he would see high up above the door Our Lord 
enthroned between the Blessed Virgin and S. Mark. And all 
around him he would find reminders of the way he had come 
and of Him who had led him to this holy place. For that 
Christ enthroned holds an open book, where is inscribed : / 
am the door ; by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved. 
And over is written again : / am the gate of life ; let those who 
are Mine enter by Me, And over again these words are set, 
Who He was, and from whom He came, and at what price He 
redeemed thee, and why He made thee and gave thee all things, 
do thou consider. 

Considering thus as he was taught, lifting his eyes in thank- 
fulness, what did he see ? He saw the Dove, the Holy Spirit 
enthroned in the height of the cupola, and from it proceeding 
twelve streams of fire upon the twelve Apostles there, and 
beneath all the nations who hear the word as at the first Pente- 
cost every man in his own tongue, and at the four angles in the 
vaults he saw four angels, each bearing a banner, and thereon 
inscribed : Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus, and round the 
border of the great cupola he read the rest of these angels' song : 
Deus Sabaoth Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua Hosanna in 
excelsis. Benedicti4s qui ve?iit in nomine Domini, And kneel- 
ing there he would catch for a moment surely some shadow of 
the holiness of his God. Thus, as the Psalmist had foretold, 
he would enter His courts with praise. 

Raising his head from this contemplation, he would under- 
stand why he must with praise enter these courts. For on the 
vault between the first and second cupolas he would see the 
Redemption of the world, the Passion of Christ, the Treason 
of man, the Crucifixion, the Descent into Hades, the Resurrec- 
tion. And passing on, the whole of that triumph of God over 
Sin and Death would burst upon him in the central great 



62 VENICE AND YENETIA 

cupola where Christ is caught up into heaven amid the angels 
to prepare a place for us. There he would read these 
words under the figures of the Madonna and the astonished 
Apostles and those two angels who appeared at the moment 
of Ascension ; it is their words he reads : Ye men of Galilee, 
why stand ye gazing up i?ito heaven 1 This Christy the Son oj 
God, as He is taken from you, shall so come the arbiter of the 
earth, trusted to do judgment and justice. And immediately he 
sees the four Evangelists who bear witness to the world, sym- 
bolized, I think, by the four great rivers — Pison, Gihon, Tigris, 
and Euphrates, of all these things and the virtues which 
spring from that witness in the hearts of men. 

The great central cupola and the Ascension of Christ bring 
us to the sanctuary itself and its great treasure, the shrine of 
S. Mark. It is guarded, as has been said, by the beautiful 
screen on which are set the Crucifix and fourteen statues : Our 
Lady, S. Mark, and the Twelve Apostles. The cupola under 
which stands the High Altar represents, I think, the kingdom 
of Heaven. The mosaic there shows us Christ enthroned as 
the Messiah surrounded by the patriarchs and prophets. It is 
for this reason, I think, that the arch before the sanctuary is 
concerned with the infancy of Our Lord — for "unless ye become 
as Httle children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven." 
Here in the sanctuary beside the great shrine and beyond it 
the altar of S . Mark with its four alabaster columns from the 
Temple of Solomon and mosaic in the apse, are many beautiful 
and wonderful things, such as those cipollino pillars carved in 
high relief that uphold the baldacchino of verde antico — all 
work of the tenth century — and the Pala d' Oro ; but to consider 
them here would confuse us in our examination of the church 
as a whole and its mystical teaching and significance. 

When the catechumen or pilgrim had come so far, and had 
in the very kingdom of Heaven paid his respects to the shrine 
of the Evangelist, he would find himself once more in that 
central space under the great dome of the Ascension where all 
the church is one. Turning either to right or left, lifting up 
his eyes, he would see on either hand scenes from the ministry 



S. MARK'S 63 

of Our Lord. Passing thence into the north aisle, he would 
have come straight to the altar of S. Peter, in the chapel at the 
head of the north aisle — the altar of S. Peter who was the chief 
captain appointed by Christ to carry on His ministry and who 
was also the godfather of S. Mark. The whole north aisle, 
from the door in the western fagade to this altar in the apse, 
seems to be devoted to S. Peter as Prince of the Apostles and 
to their ministry which he controlled. 

The north transept is, however, not his, but belongs to the 
Madonna and to her divinely adopted son, S. John. Above, 
on the left, is a late mosaic representing the genealogy of the 
Madonna, while close by is the Cappella dei Mascoli, of the 
fifteenth century, with mosaics of the death of the Virgin. All 
this is late work, as is the chapel of Our Lady in the eastern 
aisle of the transept. This was formerly the chapel of S. John, 
to whom, in fact, the whole transept once belonged, being 
entered by his door, Porta di S. Giovanni. 

Proceeding now once more to the central space under the 
great dome of the Ascension and thence into the south aisle, 
we enter the church, as it were, of S. Clement, the successor, as 
was believed, of S. Peter in the Papacy, the second great 
captain of the Church, the patron of sailors. And just as 
the northern part of the church which is S. Peter's is devoted 
to the Apostles and the Madonna, so the southern, which is 
S. Clement's, is devoted to the Saints. The present chapel of 
the Blessed Sacrament in the eastern aisle of the transept was 
formerly dedicated to S. Leonard, and the mosaics there 
devoted to his life still remain. Here also is an altar of 
S. James, and the representation of very many saints dear to 
Venice and her subject islands and cities. 

Thus the whole church spreads itself before us like a kingdom 
and like a book in which is established and in which we may 
read the whole Christian mythos, and the scheme of govern- 
ment which re-established our unity and produced the flower 
)f the Middle Age. To attempt to discover to the reader the 
vhole of this kingdom, to decipher the whole of this book in 
ts completeness, would require a space at least as great as that 



64 VENICE AND VENETIA 

in which I propose to deal not with the Church of S. Mark, but 
with Venice and Venetia. All I propose to do here I have 
already done in giving the reader the key to this mystery as I 
understand it, and in emphasizing what in many visits during 
many years has become daily more clear to me : that the 
Church of S. Mark is as profoundly a unity in its decoration as 
it is in its construction, and that though the variety of both 
may seem to obscure this fact, every day of study and atten- 
tion will but make it clearer. 

We are left, then, with but two parts of this great building to 
explore, and they properly belong not to the church itself, but 
to the Atrium : I mean the Baptistery and the Cappella Zen. 
It was not till the thirteenth century that these two chapels 
were established, and I imagine, though I am not sure, that 
before that date S. Mark's had no Baptistery, a Venetian child 
being taken then to S. Pietro di Castello for baptism. However 
that may be, it was in the thirteenth century that this Baptistery 
and the Cappella Zen were built in the Atrium, and in the 
middle of the fourteenth century Doge Andrea Dandolo covered 
the whole of the interior of the former with mosaics. The 
Baptistery thus became not only the chapel of St. John 
Baptist and the universal font of Venice, but in a sense the 
mausoleum of the great Doge to whom it owed its beauty. 

The Baptistery was apparently entered from the Atrium or 
the .Cappella Zen by the small vaulted chamber we see there 
filled with mosaics of the life of Christ before His baptism. 

The font itself is a later work of 1545, with reliefs by Desiderio 
da Settignano and of Minio of Padua and a statue of S. John 
Baptist by Segala. The mosaic of the Crucifixion with the 
Madonna, S. John Evangelist, S. Mark, and S. John Baptist, 
with the donor at the foot of the Cross, summarizes the 
mystery of Baptism here in S. Mark's, and the rest are in their 
beauty devoted to the life of the Baptist. The chapel also 
contains a curious relic — the slab of stone on which S. John 
was beheaded. In the cupola above the font we see Christ 
with S. Mark and the Apostles. Our Lord holds a scroll on 
which is written that first and last command : " Go ye there- 



S. MARK'S 65 

fore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." And under 
is written where S. Mark and the Apostles fulfilled this 
command : as S. Mark in Alexandria, S. John in Ephesus, S. 
James in India, S. Peter in Rome, S. Matthias in Palestine ; 
while in the pendentives are the four Greek Fathers — S. 
Athanasius, S. John Chrysostom, S. Gregory Nazianzen, and 
S. Basil. 

The cupola over the altar, like the cupola over the High 
Altar of the church, represents the kingdom of Heaven to which 
by baptism we are admitted. There we see Christ surrounded 
by angels, the archangels, thrones, dominations, powers, the 
virtues of Heaven, and the blessed Seraphim and Cherubim, 
and all the company of Heaven as in the Preface. In the pen- 
dentives are the four Latin Fathers — S. Gregory, S. Ambrose, 
S. Jerome, and S. Augustine. The altar is spoil from Tyre, 
and behind it is a relief of the Baptism of Christ. 

Before the main door of the chapel is the tomb of the 
great Doge who made all this so fair — Andrea Dandolo — a 
splendid work of the fourteenth century. 

The Cappella Zen was originally erected to mark the first 
resting-place of the body of S. Mark in Venice. There- 
fore it is decorated with mosaics of his life. It afterwards 
became famous as the scene of a miracle of the Madonna, 
who there gave her golden shoe to a poor pilgrim ; hence its 
later name of the Cappella della Scarpa. Then in the six- 
teenth century the Cardinal Zen, nephew of Pope Paul II, a 
Venetian, died and left his vast fortune to the Republic, 
which erected the great tomb we see there in his honour. 

So we come once more into the Piazza ; but before finally 
leaving let us consider the church once more as the mystical 
monument it is to the Faith of Venice, the Faith she, more 
than any other power in Christendom, continually championed 
against the infidel. What I have said of S. Mark's has been 
but a hint, as it were, of its true splendour and meaning. The 
profound and subtle beauty of the thought, of the religion, it 
stands for is not to be expressed in the few pages of a book 



F 



66 VENICE AND VENETIA 

or to be rightly praised or understood even after many visits. 
That which was achieved only after many years, in the course 
of centuries, and at the expense of the whole energy of 
a city like Venice, cannot be apprehended in a few hours 
by even the cleverest of us. It sums up the whole of 
one period, and that not the least heroic, in the life of the 
Republic. It has been called ugly, has been continually 
despised, and is even now, after all the eloquence of Ruskin, 
but coldly appreciated. Yet in many ways and from many 
points of view it is the most venerable and the most beautiful 
building left to us in Europe, coming to us from the earliest 
Middle Age with all the wonder of the East in its golden, 
dim aisles and all the beauty of the West in its space and 
splendour. And though for us of the North, expressing our 
love in a manner so different in a grey world of low and often 
leaden sky, of snow and frost and intermittent sunshine, S. 
Mark's must always remain a kind of wonder, we too, if we 
will, may there find our origins and understand better there 
perhaps than anywhere else to-day in Christendom that we 
were once brethren, the sheep of one pasture, one flock having 
one shepherd. 



Ill 

THE DOGE'S PALACE 

IF the Church of S. Mark sums up and expresses the 
Byzantine city ; the Palace of the Doges may be said to 
bear witness in its architecture to the Gothic, in its contents 
to the Renaissance, splendour of a city that more than any 
other State in the Italian peninsula has known how to express 
herself. 

The beautiful site which the Palace still occupies and 
adorns is in itself unique in Europe, Westminster alone being 
able to bear comparison with it. In that site we may find if 
we will indeed the whole character of the Venetian people — 
their love of splendour, their dependence on the mastery 
of the sea. 

Nor is the choice of this site a thought of the fourteenth 
century, when Venice had in truth found herself, as the Palace 
which now fills it is. From the beginning, when in 8io the 
Rialto had become the capital of the Republic, it was here on 
this very spot that the Palace of the Government was built, and 
this becomes obvious to us at once when we remember that 
S. Mark's and its predecessors, the Church of S. Theodore 
even, were but the chapels of the Doges and for that reason 
alone became the great shrine in Venice. 

As early certainly as 813 a palace has stood upon this spot; 
for more than a thousand years the home of Venetian govern- 
ment has been mirrored there in the Venetian sea. The first 
Palace, however, was doubtless very different from that we see 

to-day ; it was a Byzantine building and, as we may suppose, 

67 



68 VENICE AND VENETIA 

must have resembled those Byzantine palaces which, though 
dilapidated, are in some sort still left to us on the Grand Canal, 
the Palazzo Loredan, the Palazzo Fasetti, and, best of all, the 
so-called Fondaco dei Turchi. 

This building was several times burnt down, and when the 
final restoration was made in 1173 by the Doge Sebastiano 
Ziani there can have been very little left, one may suppose, of 
the first building. 

The Ziani Palace, however, was still wholly Byzantine, and 
so it remained for more than a hundred years, till the present 
Gothic building was begun and gradually during the fourteenth 
and fifteenth centuries took its place, for so late as 1422 half 
of the Ziani Palace was still standing, as the Chronicle of 
Pietro Dolfino assures us. 

It will be remembered that in the midst of the long struggle 
with Genoa for sea power Venice suffered many defeats; at 
Aias, in the Gulf of Alexandretta, Niccolo Spinola defeated the 
Venetian fleet, and again at Curzola Lamba Doria with eighty- 
five Genoese ships outmanoeuvred Andrea Dandolo and, em- 
ploying the tactics that had been successful at Meloria against 
Pisa, won a complete victory over the Venetians. This was in 
the year 1298. The great aristocrat and patriot, Gradenigo I, 
had then been Doge for ten years. Sansovino calls him " a 
man prompt and prudent, of unconquerable determination 
and great eloquence, who laid, so to speak, the foundations 
of the eternity of this Republic by the admirable regulations 
which he introduced into the government." ^ Many students 
have since contested this verdict, their minds set on the vain 
and empty vision of democracy, for it was Gradenigo I who 
in the midst of defeat established the oligarchy which for so 
long vindicated and upheld the greatness of the Venetian 
Republic. He it was who in 1296 closed the Great Council 
to the people at large and fixed the number of the Senate 
within certain limits.'' This profound revolution, out of which 
was to come victory and that wise and stable government 

^ Cf. Ruskin, "Stones of Venice," vol. ii, cap. viii. 
° See supra, p. 23. 



THE DOGE'S PALACE 69 

which was to win and secure for Venice her great and happy 
Empire, had its effect, as we might suppose, on the great 
Palace Ziani had restored and enlarged. A great saloon 
was necessary for the new Great Council, and, as Sansovino 
tells us, "in 1301 a saloon was begun on the Rio del Palazzo 
under the Doge Gradenigo and finished in 1309, in which 
year the Great Council first sat in it." It is, then, in the first 
year of the fourteenth century that we see the present Palace 
begun. 

That Palace, like its predecessors, has three fagades — the 
Piazzetta fagade, which in the Byzantine Palace was the 
principal^ the sea fagade, and the fagade on the canal that 
passes under the Ponte della Paglia and the Bridge of Sighs, 
which was and is known as the Rio fagade. It was here that 
the new saloon was built. For the new and Gothic Palace 
was to be wholly the work of the aristocratic oligarchy. 
Little by little it was to consume and take the place of the 
old Byzantine Palace of Ziani as little by little the oligarchy 
was to possess itself of the Central Government. This Gothic 
saloon, long since destroyed, was situated just behind the 
Bridge of Sighs as far as possible from observation, for, as 
has been said, the main fagade of the Ziani Palace was on 
the Piazzetta. Other chambers, the Cancellaria and the 
Torresella, all now destroyed, were presently added to it 
when the Tiepolo conspiracy in 1310, just a year after the 
Great Council had begun to sit in the new chamber, gave the 
Central Government an opportunity and an excuse for streng- 
thening its power. In 1300 Marino Bocconio had conspired 
against the oligarchy without success; in 13 10 a number of 
nobles, Tiepolos, Querinis, Badoers, did the same thing with 
the same result ; but the Government seized the opportunity 
to strengthen itself: it created the famous Council of Ten. 
That was the last and crowning work of Doge Gradenigo, 
who had made Venice as strong an oligarchy as Oliver Crom- 
well made England. That Council, too, would need its 
saloon, but before anything was added to the Palace Gradenigo 
was dead. His successor lived but a year. Then came 



70 VENICE AND VENETIA 

Giovanni Soranzo, who in his turn added nothing, and then 
in 1329 Francesco Dandolo, third of his name, who added the 
great gate which was later destroyed to make way for the 
Porta della Carta. It was his successor, the second Gradenigo, 
however, who added a new council chamber for the Senate, 
which found the semi-secret saloon too small and perhaps too 
mean. For the oligarchy was perfectly established and needed 
no disguise. In 1340, when Gradenigo had been Doge a 
year, a Committee of Three was formed to decide where the 
new Hall of the Great Council should be built. They 
reported in the same year that the new Hall should be built 
on the sea, or, as they called it, on the Grand Canal. Their 
report was adopted, and it was thus in 1340 was begun the 
great Sala del Maggior Consiglio which is still one of the 
wonders of the world. 

For consider the pride, confidence, and joy of the oligarchy. 
It was on the sea itself they founded their council chamber. 
Out of the very waves it rose on that marvellous double 
arcade which still astonishes us and contains in itself half the 
magic of Venice. In those days the Riva and that part of 
the Piazzetta where the two columns stand was not thought 
of. The sea front of the Palace rose up out of the waves, and 
within that Hall so majestically reared met the Government 
that ruled the first great sea power of Europe. 

This marvellous work took twenty-five years to complete 
and was interrupted by plague and conspiracy — the conspiracy 
of Marino Falier. In 1365 Guariento was able to paint his 
Paradise upon the wall where Tintoretto's now hangs, yet the 
magnificent decorations of the roof were not undertaken till 
thirty-five years later, and it was not till the year 1423 that all 
was finished. These decorations were, of course, not those 
we see now, but a much simpler scheme representing the 
heavens covered with stars. To the Doge Steno we still owe 
the magnificent balcony of the Great Hall, though the work 
above it is in part of more recent date.^ 

In 1423 the Great Council sat for the first time in its new 
^ See Ruskih, op. cit., vol. ii, cap. viii. 



THE DOGE'S PALACE 71 

chamber. Thus the great Gothic Palace was built beside the 
Byzantine Palace of Ziani which faced the Piazzetta. That old 
Palace — for reverence for ancient buildings because they are 
ancient is a rare and modern emotion — was no doubt an 
eyesore to many who then, as now, would have all things 
always new, but for a time the depletion of the exchequer in 
the mainland wars and the necessity, now felt for the first 
time, of defending a land frontier forbade the fulfilment of 
any such desire. Indeed, such a scheme was felt to be a 
danger to the Republic and a law was actually passed that 
any who in the Council should so much as propose it should 
suffer a fine of one thousand ducats.^ In 14 19, however, a 
fire broke out in the old Palace, to the injury both of it and 
of the Church of S. Mark. Then the Doge Mocenigo I, 
being anxious for the glory of the Republic, took the matter 
in hand. He did not wish to restore the old Palace, but 
determined at last to rebuild it on the plan of the new. 
Therefore he had the thousand ducats carried into the council 
chamber and spoke as follows, saying, "Since the late fire 
has burned in great part the ducal habitation (not only his 
own private palace, but all the places used for public business) 
this occasion was to be taken for an admonishment sent from 
God, that they ought to rebuild the Palace more nobly and in 
a way more befitting the greatness to which by God's grace 
their dominions had reached ; and that his motive in proposing 
this was neither ambition nor selfish interest; that as for 
ambition they might have seen in the whole course of his life, 
through so many years, that he had never done anything for 
ambition, either in the city or in foreign business, but in all 
his actions had kept justice first in his thoughts and then the 
advantage of the State and the honour of the Venetian name ; 
and that, as far as regarded his private interest, if it had not 
been for this accident of the fire, he would never have thought 
of changing anything in the Palace into either a more sumptuous 

^ An excellent law which I suggest the modern Venetians should 
revive and apply to all their old buildings. It would tame many Jewish 
schemes, and Venice might recommend it to Rome. 



72 VENICE AND VENETIA 

or a more honourable form ; and that during many years in 
which he had lived in it he had never endeavoured to make 
any change, but had always been content with it as his pre- 
decessors had left it ; and that he knew well that if they took 
in hand to build it, as he exhorted and besought them, being 
now very old and broken down with many toils, God would 
call him to another life before the walls were raised a pace 
from the ground. And that therefore they might perceive 
that he did not advise them to raise this building for his own 
convenience, but only for the honour of the city and its 
Dukedom. ... In order, as he had always done, to observe 
the laws, ... he had brought with him the thousand ducats 
which had been appointed as the penalty for proposing such a 
measure, so that he might prove openly to all men that it was 
not his own advantage that he sought, but the dignity of the 
State. . . ."' 

To this speech there was no reply. The thousand ducats 
were unanimously devoted to the work, which was imme- 
diately taken in hand. That was in 1422; the new Palace, 
the Hall of the Great Council, was not then perfectly com- 
plete. The Senate did not use it until the following year, and 
then Mocenigo was dead. It was Francesco Foscari who 
actually undertook the new building and was the first Doge 
to preside in the present Hall of the Great Council. 

Thus the old Palace of Ziani was destroyed and the new 
Palace continued on its rich arcades over the old site facing 
into the Piazzetta. 

The destruction of the old Byzantine Palace may well strike 
us as a vandalism as great as the destruction of old S. Peter's. 
Yet in giving any such verdict we must remember that in 
those days men were still capable of replacing an old nobility 
with a new. When the Norman Abbey of Westminster was 
destroyed, the church of the Confessor, Henry III was able 
to replace it by the incomparable building we still enjoy, but 
if we were to destroy Henry's church what could we put in its 
place ? The vandalism of our forefathers, though it be none 
^ Sanuto, "Cronica," apud RvLskin, op. cit., vol. ii, cap. viii. 



THE DOGE'S PALACE 73 

the less vandalism, is to be excused in this, that they knew 
how to replace what they destroyed and even more worthily.^ 

What have we then to-day in the Doge's Palace ? We have 
a building in part of the fourteenth and in part of the fifteenth 
century. To the fourteenth century belongs that part of the 
Palace which consists of the Hall of Great Council with its 
supporting arcades. To the fifteenth belongs the Piazzetta 
fagade. To this must be added the Porta della Carta, 
begun by Doge Foscari in 1439 and the interior buildings 
with which it is connected added in 1462 by Doge Cristoforo. 
Then in 1479 came another great fire which destroyed that 
part of the palace which faced the Rio, and it became 
necessary to rebuild, this both within and without. This 
work was not completed till the middle of the sixteenth 
century. 

But the Palace was not yet done with its enemy fire. In 
1574 a vast conflagration destroyed all the upper halls on the 
sea fagade and all the pictures of the Hall of Great Council, 
together with a good part of the rooms in the Rio. The 
building can have appeared as little more than a ruin. And 
in fact it was debated whether or no it should be pulled 
down and rebuilt. Happily this was not attempted : yet 
Palladio counselled it. Nevertheless, it was decided to repair 
the old Gothic building as Francesco Sansovino had advised. 
It was now that the prisons, hitherto at the top of the Palace 
in the tower, were erected on the further side of the Rio and 
the Bridge of Sighs, built by Antonio da Ponte to connect 
them with the Palace and the present Rio fagade, was begun, 
while the whole Palace was re-adorned with pictures. Thus 
we have in the middle of the sixteenth century the complete 
Palace we see to-day, unique in its beauty as in its site and, 
let us hope, for ever one of the glories of the world. 

Now in any general view of it from without, when we have 

^ Yet Mr. Ruskin, not without reason, dates the decay of Venice from 
the destruction of the Ziani Palace, the vandalism of Mocenigo. "It was 
the knell of the architecture of Venice," he says, "and of Venice herself" 
(Ruskin, op. cit., vol. ii, cap. viii. ). 



74 VENICE AND VENETIA 

felt the wonder and excellence of Its loveliness, the splendour 
of its great double arcades, the fortitude and simplicity and 
beauty of colour of the rosy upper fagade, what chiefly strikes 
us, I suppose, is the great groups of sculpture that adorn each 
of the three visible angles of the fagades. These three angles 
are now universally known as the Fig Tree Angle, the Vine 
Angle, and the Judgment Angle. They consist in each case 
of a great column and vast capital, surmounted by a sculp- 
tured group in the lower arcade ; of a smaller pillar and 
capital surmounted by an angel in the upper arcade; and 
finally of a spiral shaft with a niche over all. They form, 
indeed, the cornerstones of the building, and we shall find 
the whole meaning of the Palace in the sculpture upon 
them. 

And first the Fig Tree corner. This joins the sea fagade 
to the Piazzetta fagade, and is thus the chief, in any view of 
the Palace. The group of sculpture upon it, one of the 
loveliest in Europe, represents the Fall of Man, and teaches, 
I suppose. Fear and HumiUty and Obedience : above is S. 
Michael Archangel with his drawn sword. The Vine corner 
joins the sea fagade to the Rio fagade. The group of sculp- 
ture here represents the Drunkenness of Noah and teaches 
Temperance and Modesty : above is S. Raphael Archangel 
with Tobias. The Judgment corner joins the Piazzetta 
fagade with that part of the Palace which faces S. Mark's by 
the Porta della Carta. The group of sculpture here re- 
presents the Judgment of Solomon, a Florentine work of 
the fifteenth century : above is S. Gabriel Archangel with the 
Annunciation Lily, perhaps the earliest Renaissance figure 
in Venice. Here we have the Justice of the old Dispensa- 
tion, ruthless and exact, but, with the Annunciation of 
Gabriel, to be tempered, to be overwhelmed with mercy. No 
longer will Judgment alone, as Solomon has said, come from the 
Lord, for Christ is announced to perform the mercy which He 
promised to our forefather Abraham. On these cornerstones, 
then, of Obedience, Temperance, and Justice with Mercy the 
Venetian Republic wished to found itself. 



THE DOGE'S PALACE 75 

If now we proceed further to examine the fagades of the 
Palace we shall note, as we stand on the Ponte della Paglia, 
that the southern part of the Rio facade is bare, while 
the northern part is heavy with work of the high Renaissance. 
The sea fagade, the most beautiful of all, is broken in its 
symmetry very happily by the lower level of the two eastern 
windows, which still retain their tracery, and by the splendid 
arch and balcony of the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, 
while all is crowned by a statue of Venice. The capitals 
of the columns here are all different and full of symbolical 
sculptures of emperors and philosophers and virtues and 
vices, and I know not what else. They have been much 
restored. In the Piazzetta fagade we note that the first two 
windows are part of the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, and 
thus are part of the fourteenth-century Palace. The rest of 
this fagade belongs to the fifteenth century and was built by 
Doge Francesco Foscari on the site of the old Byzantine 
Palace of Ziani. It is crowned by a statue of Venice 
between her lions, beneath which kneels the Doge Francesco 
Foscari before the Lion and the Book. In the niches here, 
for the first time, we see Pagan deities represented, and are 
thus confirmed in our knowledge of the Renaissance origin of 
the work. Here, too, the capitals are variously sculptured 
with symbolical figures of lawgivers and various trades. 

We now proceed to examine the interior of the Palace. 
We enter by the splendid Porta della Carta, where the 
Government had its proclamations read. It is the work of 
Bartolommeo Buon (1443). Above is Justice again en- 
throned between the Lions of Venice under S. Mark with 
the Book. The relief of Doge Cristoforo kneeling before 
the Lion of S. Mark is a restoration ; at the sides in niches 
are four virtues — Charity, Prudence, Hope, and Fortitude. 
Coming into the great courtyard of the Palace, we notice its 
general Renaissance character, especially the rich Eastern 
facade ; but the south and west sides are for the most part 
Gothic work of the fourteenth century, the upper story being 
still in brick. The two bronze well heads are of fine sixteenth- 



76 VENICE AND VENETIA 

century workmanship. It is here, in fact, that we leave the 
Gothic Palace and all memory of the Gothic city and are face 
to face with the Renaissance — the small court on the north 
of the Scala dei Giganti, built in 1520 by Bergamasco, the 
Scala itself, built by Rizzo in 1484. The whole interior of 
the Palace with its decorations and pictures belong to the 
Renaissance city and do not rightly form a part of this 
chapter but of the next. Yet I think, indeed, that the 
unity of the Palace, what it stood for in Venice, is of more 
importance to us than any rigid adherence to a division, 
valuable though it be, that would necessitate our dealing in 
separate chapters with the exterior and the interior of the 
Palace of the Doges. We shall, then, merely remind ourselves 
that in passing under the Porta della Carta we pass from the 
Gothic city into the Renaissance and proceed to examine the 
interior of the Palace with the works of art it contains here 
rather than elsewhere. 

It will be remembered that the Palace was burnt out 
entirely in 1574 and 1577, and all the decorations and pictures 
which it contained were then destroyed. Venice could 
scarcely have suffered from an artistic point of view a 
greater misfortune, yet she more than any other city in Italy 
was able in some sort to repair her loss. What she lost 
was the beautiful and exquisite work of the masters of the 
fourteenth, fifteenth, and early sixteenth centuries, the work 
of Gentile da Fabriano, Vittore Pisano, Carpaccio, the 
BeUini, Cima, Catena, Bissolo, Giorgione, and Titian : 
she was able to substitute the work of Tintoretto, Paolo 
Veronese, and Palma Giovane. 

We enter the Palace by the Scala dei Giganti, and thence 
passing along the loggia to the right, ascend the Scala d' Oro, 
built by Sansovino in 1556, up which only those might pass 
whose names were written in the Libro d' Oro. At the top 
of this glorious staircase we enter the Atrio Quadrato, 
a great antechamber hung with portraits of Doges by Tin- 
toretto, while on the ceiling the same artist has painted Doge 
Lorenzo Priuli (1559) receiving the sword from Justice in 



THE DOGE'S PALACE 77 

the presence of Venice, above S. Mark is on his throne in the 
heavens. 

From this antechamber we pass into the Sala delle 
Quattro Porte, decorated by Palladio in 1575 and restored 
in 1869. This was an inner antechamber. In the midst of 
the entrance wall is a great subject-picture : a portrait of 
Doge Antonio Grimani (1523). The Doge kneels before 
a figure of Faith holding the Cross and the Chalice. Beside 
the Doge a page holds the ducal crown. To the left S. Mark, 
personifying the city, seen in the background, appears with his 
lion. This work was ordered by the Republic in 1555, not 
for the place it now occupies but for another apartment. It 
was still unfinished in 1566, and in that year Vasari saw it in 
Titian's studio. The two figures at the . sides are the work of 
a pupil. This rather vulgar painting is the only one of the 
votive pictures still preserved which Titian painted as the 
Court painter. The others were destroyed in the fires of 
1574 and 1577. 

Another pupil of Titian's is represented by a picture on the 
right of the entrance, where we see Doge Marino Grimani 
kneeling before the Virgin, and in the work opposite to it, 
where we see the conquest of Verona in 1439. The other 
works in this apartment are of little account ; yet we must 
not forget the ceiling, originally by Tintoretto, now ruined by 
restoration. There we see Jupiter giving to Venice the 
command of the sea. It must once have been one of the 
glories of the world. 

From this Sala delle Quattro Porte we enter the Ante- 
collegio, the waiting-room for ambassadors seeking an 
audience. It is, I suppose, the most gloriously decorated 
room in the world. Certainly now nothing that remains of 
the Palace may bear comparison with it for a moment. 
Here, better perhaps than anywhere else, we may under- 
stand what the pride and far-flung greatness of Venice were, 
the splendour of her achievement, the glory of her name. 

It has been said by the most profound historian of our 
day, that what in fact differentiates us from the beasts is not 



78 VENICE AND VENETIA 

the discovery or invention of fire, but the creation of the 
figure of Prometheus. If that be so we may well claim that 
all the victories of Venice are as nothing in comparison with 
the achievement we see within the four walls of this not 
very large room. It is the myth of Venice that is here 
expressed. The whole room is a masterpiece by Tintoretto 
and Veronese. On our left as we enter we see Mercury with 
the Graces — Venice, the city of great merchants with the i 
Graces which enhance the enjoyment of life by refinement 1 
and gentilezza : commerce and civilization in their most 
splendid form represented by the cunning and virile god and j 
the lovely nude maidens full of the promise of joy. On the 
other side of the entrance door we see the Forge of Vulcan 
and the fiery energy of Venice, the strength of the bright 
steel of her battle forged in the fire and smoke of her 
workshops. The two by Tintoretto. 

Passing a dark picture of Jacob and Laban by Leandro 
Bassano, we come to that splendour of Paolo Veronese, the 
Rape of Europa. Nothing, I suppose, can be conceived more 
rich, more sumptuous, more golden, or more sad in its 
luxuriance than this glorious work, which recalls to us the 
infamous League of Cambrai, the most unforgivable 
political act of which the Papacy was ever guilty; and yet 
for our consolation it recalls too the origins of Venice and is 
therefore surrounded by a halo of joy. It alone would be 
enough to exalt any palace in the world above its fellows; yet 
here it is but one amid a crowd of works which fill this 
crowded room with such a dazzle of light that we may scarcely 
enter it without embarrassment. For close by there shines 
another miracle by Tmtoretto, the Minerva repelling Mars, 
counsel that is thrusting back cruel barbarian war ; and over 
against it stands the loveliest of all the treasures of the 
city — Tintoretto's Bacchus and Ariadne — Ariadne, deserted * 
by Theseus, discovered in Naxos by vine-clad Bacchus crowned 
by Venus. What else is this than the crowning of Venice 
lost on her islands as Queen of the Sea ? " Seated on the 
shore like a deity, Venice receives the ring from the young 




o 

'-' tr. 



THE DOGE'S PALACE 79 

vine-crowned god who has descended into the water, while 
Beauty soars on her wings with the diadem of stars to crown 
the wonderful alliance." " Look!" says D' Annunzio again ; 
" Look at the distant ship ! it seems to bring some announce- 
ment. Look at the body of the symbolic woman ! both seem 
capable of bearing the germs of a world." 

From the Antecollegio we enter the Sala del CoUegio, 
where the Doge, seated on his throne surrounded by his 
Council, received the ambassadors. The glory of this room is 
its ceiling by Paolo Veronese ; it is, of course, the finest in 
Venice, and, I suppose, in the world. There we see Venice 
enthroned on the world with Justice and Peace. In the 
midst is Faith with other virtues and Neptune and Mars. 
But the room is not only glorious in its roof. Over the 
entrance Tintoretto has painted a votive picture with a portrait 
of Doge Andrea Gritti (1538) before the Blessed Virgin, 
towards whom S. Mark directs his gaze. On the right stand 
S. Bernardino of Siena and S. Louis of Toulouse, for the 
Doge was a Franciscan, and in the midst appears a young 
martyr with the branch of palm presenting a child to the 
Virgin. Close by, on the left, is another votive picture by the 
same great master, with a portrait of Doge Francesco Donate 
(1545) before S. Mark. On the left is the Marriage of 
S. Catherine of Alexandria and under is S. Francis. Thus 
the Doge kneels to the patron of Venice, S. Mark : to the Star 
of the Sea, the Blessed Virgin ; to the patron of the over-sea 
dominions of the city, S. Catherine of Alexandria ; and to his 
own patron, S. Francis, whose name he bears. Another votive 
picture by Tintoretto occupies the middle of the wall. There 
Doge Nicol6 da Ponte (1578), presented by S. Mark, kneels 
to the Madonna. Beside him stands his patron, S. Nicholas, 
whilst about the Madonna stand S. Antony and S. Joseph. 
In the background is the city. Next to this masterpiece is 
another work by the same painter, where Doge Alvise Mocenigo 
(1570), presented by S. Mark, kneels to Our Lord in glory. 
On the right kneel the Doge's two brothers, Nicolo and 
Andrea with their patrons. Behind the Doge stand S. 



8o VENICE AND YENETIA 

Louis of Toulouse, his patron, and S. John the Baptist. 
The background shows us the Libreria Vecchia and the 
Campanile. Over the throne Paolo Veronese has painted a 
picture commemorating the battle of Lepanto, where Doge 
Sebastiano Venier (1577) is presented by S. Mark kneeling 
to the Saviour rendering thanks for that victory at which 
he was present. Beside S. Mark stands the patron of the battle, 
S. Justina of Padua ; behind her stands S. Catherine with the 
ducal crown. To the left is Faith with the chalice, and 
behind her we catch a glimpse of the battle. The Doge is 
supported by the hero of the fight, Agostino Barbarigo, who 
holds the banner of S. George. 

From the Sala del Collegio we pass into the Sala del 
Senato, which is for the most part decorated by Palma 
Giovane. In the Senate Hall the throne of the Doge and 
the stalls of the senators and the procurators occupy still 
their old place. Above are the portraits of two Doges, 
Marc Antonio Trevisano and Pietro Lando (1553, 1545)5 by 
Tintoretto. In the midst is a very beautiful representation of the 
Dead Christ supported by angels. On the wall opposite, at 
the end of the room, we see the Doges Girolamo and Lorenzo 
Priuli (1559, 1567), kneeling, attended by S. Jerome and S. 
Lorenzo, before Christ, who appears in the clouds with the 
Blessed Virgin and S. Mark. This by Palma Giovane. Close 
by on the window wall is a portrait of the first Patriarch of 
Venice, S. Lorenzo Giustiniano, painted by Marco Vecelli. 
Opposite is a votive picture of Doge Pietro Loredan (1567), by 
Tintoretto. Over the door is another work by Palma Giovane 
representing in symbol the League of Cambrai, the Doge 
Lorenzo Loredan (1520) crowned by angels. Beside this is 
a portrait of Doge Pasquale Cicogna (1592) and a portrait of 
Doge Francesco Venier (1577) by the same artist. In the 
midst of the ceiling is a picture by Tintoretto of Venice 
enthroned as Queen of the Adriatic, full of pride and 
glory. 

From the Sala del Senato to the right of the throne we 
enter the vestibule of the chapel and the chapel of the Doges. 



THE DOGE'S PALACE 8i 

In the vestibule are two works by Tintoretto of S. Jerome and 
S. Andrew and S. Louis, S. Margaret, and S. George. In the 
chapel itself the only thing that calls for our attention is the 
statue of the Madonna by Sansovino, a lovely and even a 
moving piece of work. 

Hence we return to the Sala delle Quattro Porte through 
the great doors of the Sala del Senato, and passing thence 
through an anteroom enter the Sala del ConsigHo dei Dieci, 
the Hall of the Council of Ten. For all the terrible fame 
of that assembly, their Hall is neither very noble in form 
nor very splendid in its decorations. Only in the ceiling 
paintings we find a remnant of the work of Paolo Veronese 
destroyed in the fire of 1577. This fragment shows us an old 
man leaning his head on his hand. 

From the Hall of the Council of Ten we pass into the ante- 
chamber of the Hall of the Council of Three; it contains 
nothing worthy of note, and we enter at once the room on 
the right, the Sala dei Capi, the Hall of the Three. The 
central piece in the ceiling here is of the school of Veronese, 
and represents an angel driving away vice. To the right is 
a Madonna and Child, before whom kneels Doge Leonardo 
Loredan, by Catena, a fine, even a beautiful piece of work. 
On the left is a curious Giovanni Bellini, a Pieta. 

Returning hence to the antechamber and thence descend- 
ing the great staircase, the Scala dei Censori, we enter, on the 
left, the largest and most magnificent hall in the Palace, the 
Sala del Maggior Consiglio. Here those whose names were 
inscribed in the Libro d' Oro met : it was the Venetian House 
of Lords. On the ceiling Paolo Veronese, Tintoretto, Bassano, 
and Palma Giovane have painted the victories of Venice. 
There, too, Veronese has set Venice herself crowned by Fame, 
and Tintoretto has painted Doge Niccolb da Ponte (1585) 
presenting the conquered cities to Venice. The frieze round 
the room consists of the portraits of seventy-six Doges, begin- 
ning with Obelerio (810), the ninth Doge of the Venetian 
confederation and the first of Venice ; while on the eastern 
wall, over the dais and the Doge's throne, hangs the vast 



82 VENICE AND VENETIA 

painting in oils which Tintoretto made to take the place 
of Guariento's fresco which still in part remains behind the 
canvas, but which was utterly ruined in the fire. I confess 
at once that while in the Antecollegio Tintoretto seems to me 
one of the great painters in the world, a true poet and creator 
of beauty, here I am altogether at a loss. The vast canvas, 
almost black and altogether without order or arrangement in 
its composition, means absolutely nothing to me, it moves me 
not at all, I get from it no pleasure, nor do I understand it. 
It is to me like some vast, deep seascape where a life half 
human, half demonic might pass before our eyes, swimming 
hither and thither, eternally restless, eternally in confusion, 
intent on no business, going nowhither, only continually 
changing in the murky light as the figures change and mean 
nothing in a kaleidoscope. For others this picture may be, 
as I gather it was for Ruskin, a profound revelation of beauty 
and joy. Me it cannot affect. I am, let me confess it^ merely 
confused and tired by its dim ocean of figures that seem 
to pass and repass making wild gesticulations — of joy or of 
sorrow is it ? — I know not why, and if this be Heaven I had 
looked for a happier place and one full of light. Who for a 
moment would exchange this our dear world for that far ocean 
of murky gloom? Let us go to the great window and standing 
there look at the sunlight lying on the city, the dancing waves 
of the lagoon, the happy morning joyful along the Schiavone, 
the shady trees of the gardens, the adventurous Fortuna, the 
cold, magnificent Salute, the joy of S. Giorgio of the rosy tower, 
the life of the ships at the Zattere quays, the ways of the little 
people in the Piazzetta. Is not this a heaven of heavens in 
comparison with that solemn black chaos within doors? — 
that pretentious and prideful study in anatomy and movement 
that has no thought at all of anything in the world or above it 
save the wonderful capacity as an artist of Messer Jacopo 
Tintoretto? Yet he is but typical of them all. After the 
Bellini Venice never possessed a religious painter. Not one 
of them all, even the greatest, Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, 
is anything but a mediocrity beside Angelico, or Gentile da 



THE DOGE'S PALACE 83 

Fabriano, or Sassetta, or half a dozen Sienese I could name. 
Infinitely greater than any of these as painters pure and 
simple they doubtless were, but they have lost the sense of 
religion, something divine, something without which all 
is very little more than nothing, and leads only to weariness. 
Consider the religious paintings of these men : the Assumption 
in the Academy, the vast, dim, terrible work in the Scuola di 
S. Rocco, the huge Supper in the House of Simon in the Louvre 
— do they^mean anything to any living soul as religious pictures? 
Does one even remember before them that one is looking 
at something religious, something supernatural and divine? 
I am only aware in their presence of the genius of Titian, 
of the passionate eagerness and tragic strength of Tintoretto, 
of the splendour and luxuriance and wealth of Veronese's 
art : I forget God, I forget the origins of my soul, I forget 
that I have ever wept in humility or desired quietness or 
called for aid. I remember only the tireless energy of man, 
his unbreakable pride, and endless achievement : I forget 
Bethlehem and remember Rome. And this is what they, 
often unconscious of their intention, finally mean. They 
are of the high Renaissance : something divine has vanished 
from the world; God has withdrawn Himself, and there is 
left only man to worship the work of his own hands. In a 
sense, too, that is to be only too obvious later, it is the most 
appalling victory of all, the victory of science over poetry, 
which in its own way has destroyed every civilization that 
we have ever contrived. Not so thought the Venetians. 
Round this their vast council chamber in the pride of their 
lives they painted only their victories ; they forgot their defeats, 
they forgot they were men. On the right wall they remind 
themselves that they had humbled an emperor, on the left that 
before them had fallen Byzantium, the second Rome. And 
not to God but to Venice they give glory — to Venice, Queen 
of the Sea, already tottering to that fall which pride foregoeth. 



IV 
PIAZZA DI S. MARCO 

WE have considered the Church of S. Mark as the type 
and the flower of Byzantine Venice ; we have taken 
the Palace of the Doge as the perfect symbol of the Gothic 
city; we shall now turn to the great Piazza, which in its 
various parts contains them both, as the type and indeed 
the sum of the Venice of the Renaissance. That it is, and 
something more. For though, as we have it to-day, it may be 
said, and truly, to be of the Renaissance, we must not forget 
that it was always, even in the earliest times, even in the 
Byzantine city, the heart and centre of Venice, and that it 
remains so still even in our day, when Venice has shrunk 
once more, it might seem, to this group of buildings on the 
Rivo Alto. 

The Piazza di S. Marco, in fact, is not merely the centre of 
modern or of mediaeval Venice ; in many ways it is Venice 
herself. It not only contains the most famous and the most 
splendid buildings of the city — the Church, the Palace, the 
Government offices, the Library, the Bell Tower, and the Clock 
Tower of Venice — but it is the universal meeting-place and 
the principal gateway of the calli^ the canals, the lagoons, and 
the sea. All that is meant by the word Venezia is in truth 
there summed up and expressed. 

These considerations would lead us to regard it, even 
though we did not know it, as the most famous Piazza in 
Italy and in the world; the most famous and perhaps 
the most beautiful. Not one of the spacious Piazzas we 

84 



M 




ij,%Ss.«_| 



THE PIAZZETTA, VENICE 



PIAZZA DI S. MARCO 85 

know so well in Rome, in Florence, in Siena, in Milan, or 
in Naples can be compared with it either for renown or for 
beauty ; and as we tell over their names we have to admit 
that, after all, they are of no importance beside the Piazza of 
S. Mark. Even in Rome, where it would seem we might 
surely expect to find something at least to compare with it, 
there is, in fact, nothing ; for the Piazza di S. Pietro is a mere 
vestibule to S. Peter's Church, and has very little to do with 
the life of the city ; the Piazza Venezia is only a cul de sac, 
and moreover a ruin, while the Piazza Colonna is just a gap 
in the Corso, the Piazza di Spagna a wilderness of strangers. 
There is no Piazza in Rome which may be said to be the 
centre of the city, or, to sum it up and in fact to stand as a 
symbol for it in the imagination of mankind, as the Piazza of 
S. Mark does even to-day sum up and symbolize Venice. 

The beautiful Piazza, thus so famous, may be said to consist 
of four parts — the Piazza proper, the Piazzetta, the Molo, or 
quay, and the Piazzetta dei Leoni. Let us take them in 
order. 

Of all the many ways of approaching the great Piazza, 
that is surely the commonest which brings the traveller 
through more than one quiet and half-deserted campo — the 
Campo di S. Maria Zobenigo and the Campo di S. Mois^, 
for instance — past the fantastic fagade of the latter church into 
the dark and narrow street that suddenly leaves him amid a 
group of heavy columns under a splendid arcade, whence 
before him stretches far away the great Piazza in all its 
beauty of order and light, to the great admiration of all 
who have ever beheld it. Before him, but still a long way 
off, across that great and beautiful square, rises the Cathedral 
of S. Mark, with its many domes and gilded balls and crosses, 
its fagade precious with mosaics, splendid with gold, sumptuous 
with various marbles, which changes so exquisitely with every 
mood of the day, and before it the great flagstaffs, where on a 
Sunday float the tricolour standards of Italy that have dis- 
placed the crimson banners of S. Mark. To the right, before 
the church, soars the Campanile once more, in all its sober 



86 VENICE AND VENETIA 

majesty, hiding, as it was meant to do, the Piazzetta and the 
western fagade of the Palace, and to the left of the church 
opens the Piazzetta dei Leoni, where stands the Episcopal 
Palace, and further still to the left rises the fantastic clock- 
tower under which runs the principal street of Venice. Such 
is the noble spectacle before us ; but what of the Piazza itself? 

The northern (left) side of the great square is formed by 
the long and beautiful line of buildings, the Procuratie 
Vecchie, which formed the official residence of the Procurators 
of S. Mark, the chief officers of the Republic. The lower part 
of this building with its open arcade was built by Pietro Lom- 
bardo in 1496, the upper by Bartolommeo Buon the younger 
in 15 19, while the whole is closed towards the Piazzetta dei 
Leoni by the clock-tower which Rizzo of Verona built in 
1496. The southern (right) side of the Piazza is formed by 
the Procuratie Nuove, built in 1584 by Scamozzi as further 
offices for the Procurators. This building, too, is arcaded 
towards the Piazza and now forms with its various parts on 
the Grand Canal the Palace of the King of Italy in Venice, 
after having served a like purpose for the Emperor of Austria. 

The western end of the Piazza, facing the church, is a much 
later addition to the square. It is called the Nuova Fabbrica, 
and was built in 18 10 by Napoleon as additional offices and 
to connect the Procuratie Vecchie and Nuove. 

This work of Napoleon brings us straight to realize the fact 
that the Piazza of S. Marco by no means always appeared as 
we now see it. It is obvious that even in the eighteenth cen- 
tury, much more in the fifteenth, it was very different from 
what it appears to-day ; and, indeed, it differed very greatly. 

The island on which the Piazza is built was in the earliest 
time, long before the Venetian Confederation founded itself 
on the Rivo Alto, known as Morso — that is to say, lasting or 
tenacious, probably on account of its stability in contrast with 
the other mud flats of the lagoon. It was early divided by a 
channel or canal called Batario, crossed by a bridge called the 
Malpassi^ beside which stood as early as 564 a church dedi- 
cated to S. Teodoro, which nearly three hundred years later 



PIAZZA DI S. MARCO 87 

was either supplanted by or incorporated in the Church of 
S. Mark. On the other side of the Batario stood the Church 
of S. Gemignano, dating from about the same time. The 
open space, or Piazza, in which, divided by the Batario^ these 
churches stood, was then Httle more than a clearing about 
half the size of the present Piazza ; it was covered with grass 
and surrounded, or at any rate largely shaded, by trees, and 
for this reason was called Brolo (the Park). Early in the 
tenth century this park was protected and closed by Doge 
Pietro Tribuno (912) against the pirates by a fortified wall 
which ran from the present Campo di S. Maria Zobenigo to 
the Riva degli Schiavoni on the sea side of the Piazza. It was 
not till two hundred years later that the Piazza was enlarged 
practically to its present size, the Batario filled in, and the 
Church of S. Gemignano pulled down and rebuilt where the 
Nuova Fabbrica now stands. Before 1 173 the great place was 
enclosed completely by a colonnade, and in that year the sea- 
wall was demolished. 

Nearly a hundred years later, in 1264, the Piazza was paved 
for the first time — with tiles. By 1382 it was found that the 
water in the main channel had risen, and the Piazza was 
much subject to flood. In that year it was raised and 
repaved, as it was again in 1590. This work of raising and 
building up the Piazza was again repeated in 1722, when it 
was first paved with stone, and thus under these continual 
heightenings the steps that led originally up from the Piazza 
to the doors of S. Mark's disappeared, so that to-day it is 
actually necessary to step down from the Piazza into the 
church, and this although the whole pavement of the square 
is sloped from the Nuova Fabbrica down to the great fagade. 
It will be noticed too that the shape of the Piazza is not 
rectangular, but that it is narrower at the Nuova Fabbrica 
than at the fagade of the church. In this it is like all the 
Venetian palaces, which are broader on their canal front than 
on the side in the street, and this is, no doubt, a contrivance 
for the sake of light and beauty. 

As late as the fifteenth century trees remained in the Piazza, 



88 VENICE AND VENETIA 

and their roots were found as well as the remains of three 
former pavements in the excavations for the foundations of 
the new Campanile in 1903. At the end of the quattrocento, 
as we may see in Bellini's picture of the Procession in the 
Piazza, now in the Academy, the hospital of Doge Pietro 
Orseolo was then standing. It adjoined the Campanile, and 
seems with other buildings to have connected it to the arcade 
on the southern side of the Piazza. These other buildings 
were certainly offices of the Procuratori, and since they 
spoiled the appearance of the square they were pulled down 
with the hospital in 1582,^ the latter being removed to the 
Campo S. Gallo. There the Procuratie Nuove, as has been 
said, were built, but further back. The Campanile was in 
this new building left isolated. It seems to have been about 
this time that shops began to appear in the Piazza under the 
older arcade ; they now, as every traveller knows, have usurped 
every building in the place. 

Nearly eighty years before the demolition of the hospital, 
the old Church of S. Gemignano was pulled down, in 1505, 
and rebuilt, only to be pulled down again by Napoleon in 
1807, when the Nuova Fabbrica was erected. 

Let us now consider the buildings and so forth in the 
Piazza, and first the three flagstaffs. Up to the time Bellini 
painted his picture their pedestals were simple and in wood, but 
almost immediately after, in 1505, these were destroyed, and 
those we now see in bronze, the work of Alessandro Leopardi, 
were substituted. The staffs bore three splendid banners 
representing, it is said, Venice, Cyprus, and Crete. 

But the great treasure of the Piazza was the famous Cam- 
panile, which came to so tragic an end in July, 1902. The 
Campanile seems always, even in the earliest times, to have 
stood where it fell. Tradition tells us that its foundations 

^ The reader will find this, among many other particulars of interest 
concerning the Piazza, in a guide of handy form, published by Messrs. 
Methuen and written by Mr. H. A. Douglas, *' Venice on Foot." I 
recommend this work to the traveller. The author knows Venice as few 
have done. 



PIAZZA DI S. MARCO 89 

were laid in 888 in the time of Doge Pietro Tribuno, but the 
tower does not seem to have been really begun till 1148. 
From that time onward it was continually under repair — not 
apparently from any weakness in the foundation, but rather 
from some fault in the brick used. In the year 1329 we read 
that the Campanile was " renewed at the hands of an architect 
called II Mantagnana." In 1400 it was burnt during the festa 
of Doge Michele Steno, and in 141 7 it was struck by lightning 
and the upper part, which was of wood, was totally destroyed. 
It was rebuilt of stone, but was struck again in 1490, and 
restored in 1515, when the golden angel was placed on its 
summit to guard it. Various misfortunes befell it of a minor 
character, but on 23 April, 1745, it was again very seriously 
damaged by lightning. A drawing by Canaletto, now at 
Windsor, shows us how great was the damage done, for the 
tower is there seen under repair. The angle of the Cam- 
panile facing the clock-tower of S. Mark's was ripped out 
from top to bottom, and the Loggia of Sansovino, of which 
we shall speak in a moment, was damaged by the debris. 
This must have shaken the whole structure, and probably 
contributed to the tragedy of July, 1902. 

That tragic day, when the Campanile rather subsided than 
fell, will never be forgotten by any who witnessed it. The 
whole of Venice seemed to be assembled in the Piazza, and 
very many were weeping. Men wrung their hands in frantic 
helplessness while the noblest tower in Italy sank, as it 
seemed, into the sea, weary with age. The excavations which 
were undertaken previous to the rebuilding, now happily nearly 
completed, and the scientific examination of the debris have 
shown that it was no insecurity in the foundations that brought 
the Campanile down, but rather the great old age of the 
bricks, many of which were little more than dust, blown 
through and through by the sea wind. 

Happily the Campanile is now practically rebuilt — happily : 
for to think of Venice without the Campanile of S. Mark is to 
us all almost an impossibility. It was not the Piazza alone 
that the famous bell-tower dominated, but all Venice too? 



90 VENICE AND VENETIA 

across whose silent ways that bell, sounded by the watchman 
on the summit every quarter of an hour by day and night, 
seemed like an assurance of safety, of our civilization, of 
Europe^ and our Faith. For it was, of course, first and fore- 
most a belfry, and the great bells, that to some extent doubtless 
contributed by their vast weight to the fall, were the sweetest 
and noblest voices in Venice. That belfry that Buono made in 
1 510 was a beautiful open loggia of four arches on each face, 
which overlooked all Venice and the islands and might be 
seen from Asolo ; for the height of the tower was very great, 
323 feet on a base of 42 square feet. And it had even to the 
merest tourist a value, if only for remembrance, that after all 
too few things nowadays may claim. For four hundred years 
and more not one of our countrymen has visited Venice 
without being astonished at its beauty. John Evelyn, for 
instance, writes thus in his diary, concerning his visit to Venice 
in 1645 :— 

" Having fed our eyes with the noble prospect of the island 
of S . George, the galleys, gondolas, and other vessels passing 
to and fro, we walked under the cloisters on the other side of 
this goodly Piazza, being a most magnificent building, the 
design of Sansovino. . . . After this we climbed up the tower 
of S. Mark, which we might have done on horseback, as 'tis 
said one of the French kings did, there being no stairs or 
steps, but returns that take up an entire square on the arches 
40 feet, broad enough for a coach. This steeple stands by 
itself without any church near it, and is rather a watch-tent in 
the corner of the Piazza ... on the top is an angel that 
turns with the wind and from hence is a prospect down the 
Adriatic as far as Istria and the Dalmatian side, with the 
surprising sight of this miraculous city lying in the bosom of 
the sea in the shape of a lute, the numberless islands tacked 
together by no fewer than 450 bridges." 

We must not leave the Campanile without mentioning the 
chebba, or cage, which was suspended from a wooden pole 
thrust from one of the windows half-way up, towards the 
Piazzetta. Here delinquent priests were exposed, and we have 



PIAZZA DI S. MARCO 91 

record of one in the fifteenth century who had been in the 
cage for a year and was still alive. 

Beneath the Campanile, on the side facing the Palace, in 
1540 Sansovino built a loggia where the Procuratori might 
wait in the shade the result of deliberations in the Senate or 
the nobles amuse themselves. It was a beautiful building, in 
keeping with the Libreria Vecchia, and it will be rebuilt, for 
it was destroyed when the Campanile fell, with the old stones. 

The Loggia and the Libreria Vecchia bring us into the 
Piazzetta. This beautiful square, opening out of the Piazza 
at right angles and going down to the Molo and the sea, has 
also been raised and built up, as the Piazza has been, and 
this explains the stunted appearance of the lower pillars of 
the Piazzetta fagade of the Palace. It contains two major 
treasures — the columns of S. Theodore and S. Mark towards 
the sea, and the Libreria Vecchia, which closes it on the west. 

The two columns with their capitals, among the most 
beautiful in the world, are spoil of war. They were brought to 
Venice by Doge Domenico Michiel after the fall of Tyre under 
the sword of Venice in 1 1 2 7, and were set up here fifty years later 
by a certain Lombard, Niccolb Barattiere, who as a reward for 
his skill in engineering claimed to keep a gaming-table between 
them. The keeping of such tables was contrary to Venetian law, 
but his request was granted, and the monopoly thus established 
was only destroyed in 1529. But from the fourteenth century 
the public executions were made here : possibly to discourage 
the gamblers, though from what we know of such things 
that seems an unlikely result. Upon the western pillar 
is set a statue of S. Theodore standing upon a crocodile. 
In his left hand is an unsheathed sword, on his right 
arm is a shield, and this, says Francesco Sansovino, is a 
symbol of the Republic, who "exerts her strong arm for defence 
and not for attack." S. Theodore, a favourite saint of the 
Eastern Church, was a Syrian soldier who in his youth 
suffered martyrdom under Maximinian. Narses, who visited 
the lagoons in 553, built where S. Mark's now stands, as is said, a 
chapel in his honour, and thus made him the earliest patron of 



92 VENICE AND VENETIA 

what was afterwards Venice. The Lion of S. Mark which 
crowns the other capital is a work of the fifteenth century, 
though the wings are modern. The Book, in which were of 
old inscribed the words Pax tibi Marce, was defaced in 
Napoleon's time, and some revolutionary legend substituted 
concerning the so-called " Rights " of man. And it was said 
that the Revolution had compelled even S. Mark to turn over 
a new leaf. But Venice was then dead, and Napoleon was 
able to steal the Lion for the Invalides. It came back, with 
Nero's bronze horses, when England had broken him at 
Waterloo. The pillars are the most characteristic of all 
Venetian monuments : similar shafts were erected in all the 
cities that came under Venetian rule. 

Before 1529 the site of the Libreria Vecchia was filled with 
inns. In that year they were cleared away, and in 1535 
Sansovino began to build the beautiful Renaissance Library 
we see to-day with its arcade. Ten years later, however, a 
good part of it fell suddenly, and Sansovino found himself in 
prison, from which he was rescued by the efforts of Pietro 
Aretino. In 1570, however, when he died, the building was 
still incomplete, and Scamozzi was employed to finish it, 
which he succeeded in doing in 1582. 

The Piazzetta originally extended only a few feet beyond 
the two pillars, but in 1285 the Molo was built, which now 
extends from the Ponte della Paglia to the garden of the Royal 
Palace, and the sea was thrust back. The Ponte della Paglia 
connects the Molo with the Riva degli Schiavoni and crosses 
the Rio del Palazzo, and is so called, it is thought, because 
the boats laden with straw moored there or there held their 
market. It is a work, as we see it, of the nineteenth century. 
The great treasure of the Molo, however, is the Zecca, or Mint, 
which adjoins the Libreria and faces the sea. This beautiful 
Palace was built by Sansovino in 1536 on the site of a building 
which, used for the same purpose, dated back to 938. Here 
the gold ducat called the Zecchino was coined as far back as 
T284. Only gold was coined in this place, other mints being 
used where silver or mixed money was coined. Beyond the 



PIAZZA DI S. MARCO 93 

Zecca now stretch the Royal, once the Imperial, gardens. 
Before 1340 this space was used as a yard for building galleys, 
and in 1238, the disastrous year of Curzola, fifteen were built 
and launched there, close by a lion's den where twenty years 
later two cubs were born. In 1350 the site was cleared and 
public granaries were there erected, in which, or rather in 
prisons erected for the purpose within, the Genoese prisoners 
after Chioggia were confined. These granaries were not 
demolished till 1808, when the gardens were made. 

There remains but one of the four parts of Piazza di San 
Marco still to examine, the Piazzetta dei Leoni, so called 
from the two lions in red marble by Giovanni Bonazza which 
Doge Mocenigo placed here in 1722. It was originally, I 
fancy, a vegetable market, and the only thing notable in it is 
the great well head, which is said to cover the deepest well in 
Venice. At the end is the Palazzo Patriarchale, a building for 
the most part of 1837, and poor at that ; part of it originally 
belonged to the Doges. Close by is the very old and now 
dismantled Church of S. Basso, built in the eleventh century, 
burned in the fire of 1105, rebuilt and again burned in 1661, 
to be once more rebuilt and finally closed in 18 10. It is now 
a sort of Opera for S. Mark's, and part makes a charming 
antiquity shop. 



V 
SESTIERE DI CASTELLO 

THE SESTIERI — S. ZACCARIA — LA PIETA — VENETA MARINA — 
S. GIUSEPPE DI CASTELLO— S< PAOLO DI CASTELLO — THE 
ARSENAL — S. GIOVANNI IN BRAGORA — S. GIORGIO DEI 
GRECI — S. GIORGIO DEGLI SCHIAVONI— S. FRANCESCO 
DELLA VIGNA — SS. GIOVANNI E PAOLO 

THE city of Venice has been divided since the twelfth 
century into six parts, ses fieri, three to the north of 
the Grand Canal, called Castello, S. Marco, and Cannaregio, 
and three to the south, called S. Croce, S. Polo, and 
Dorsoduro. The largest of these divisions which endure till 
the present day is Castello, which embraces all the north- 
eastern part of the city. Of the three southern divisions 
Dorsoduro is now the greatest, for it includes the island of 
Giudecca, but up till 127 1 S. Croce was its rival in size, for 
before that year it included the island of Murano. 

It is very roughly to these ancient divisions that we shall 
adhere in our examination of the city in the following 
chapters. Roughly, because it will not always be convenient 
to forgo passing from one sestiere to another in search of a 
church that lies in our way ; nor is the traveller well used to 
any such division of the city, which divides itself naturally into 
but three parts, namely, the regions to the north and south of 
the Grand Canal and the island of Giudecca. No modern map 
which I have seen marks the sestieri^ and though their names 

94 



SESTIERE DI CASTELLO 95 

are everywhere emblazoned on the streets, they might seem 
to have rather a poHtical than a geographical significance. 
It is convenient to the traveller, however, to examine the city 
rather in six walks than in three, and for that reason I have 
roughly taken the sestieri as my guide, glad that in doing so 
I am following a division so ancient and so enduring. 

The Cathedral of S. Mark and its surroundings, which we 
have already dealt with, belong, of course, to that sestiere 
known as S. Marco. Before dealing with the rest of that 
sestiere we shall explore the largest of all, the Sestiere di 
Castello, which includes all the eastern and northern part of 
Venice lying to the north of the lagoon and the Grand 
Canal. Roughly, this sestiere may be said to be bounded 
on the west and south by the Palace of the Doges, the Church 
of S. Lio, the Rio di S. Maria, and the Rio dei Mendicant!;^ 
on the east and north by the sea and the lagoons. It is most 
easily and obviously entered by the Riva degli Schiavoni, but 
for our purpose we prefer to start from the Piazza. 

From the Piazza, then, we proceed at once into the 
Piazzetta dei Leoni, and passing round the Palazzo 
Patriarchale we see opposite the Palazzo Trevisani or Bianca 
Capello, built by pupils of the Lombardi in 1500 and pur- 
chased from the Trevisani in 1 5 7 7 by Bianca Capello for her 
brother. The famous Venetian beauty, who became Grand 
Duchess of Tuscany, however, never lived here herself. 
Crossing the bridge to the right, which affords us a fine view 
of the Rio fagade of the Ducal Palace and the Bridge of Sighs, 
we enter the narrow ways, cross the Campo di Santi Filippo 
e Giacomo, and crossing another canal enter the Campo di 
S. Provolo, and thence straight forward come to the Campo 
di S. Zaccaria, over the gateway of which is a fine relief, 
possibly by Massegne, of the Madonna and Child between 
S. John Baptist and S. Mark. Here by this gateway Doge 
Pietro Tradonico was assassinated when returning from Vespers 
on 13 September, 864. That visit, which ended so disastrously, 
was the first made by the Doge in recognition, it is said, of 

' See end-paper map. 



96 VENICE AND VENETIA 

hospitality extended by the nuns, for the church was attached 
to a convent, to Pope Benedict II in 855, who had taken 
refuge there from the Antipope Anastasius. On the occasion 
of Doge Pietro Tradonico's visit the nuns presented him with 
a cap, with which all the Doges thereafter were crowned. 
This cap was carried in procession when on 13 Septem- 
ber in each year the Doge visited the church ; but after 
1 172 the date was changed and the procession was made on 
Easter Day. This continued to be the custom till 1797. The 
old convent, founded in 809, lay to the right of the church ; 
the later building near the Campanile is now a barracks. 

The church itself is said to have been founded in the 
seventh century by S. Magno. However that may be, the 
Benedictine convent, as we have seen, dates from the ninth 
century, when Doge Angelo Particiaco placed in the church 
which he had restored a piece of the True Cross and the body 
of S. Zaccaria, which had been sent him by the Emperor of 
Constantinople. The present church, with its beautiful 
fagade, dates from the fifteenth century, and is a spacious 
though rather gloomy building. Eight Doges lie therein, but 
its great treasure is the famous altarpiece by Giovanni Bellini 
of the Madonna and Child enthroned with four saints. It is 
one of the finest of his works. Completed in 1505, it is in 
that new manner which came to Bellini in his age as a new . 
vision of the world, caught perhaps from the enthusiasm of his 
young disciples, who were to revolutionize painting. Our 
Lady and the Holy Child are still enthroned in that niche 
with which we are so familiar, but there is something new 
in the picture which assures us, as it did Vasari, that it is a 
work in the " modern " manner. Perhaps we find it in the 
figure of S. Lucia, who stands on the right of the throne, her ■ 
fair hair lying all gold across her shoulders, the lighted lamp 
in her hand, the curved palm branch, too, the sign of her J 
martyrdom. Beside her is S. Jerome, his Bible open before him, 
the father of monasticism. To the left stand S. Catherine 
of Alexandria and S. Peter. Nor is this all, for in the Cappella 
di Tarasio, to the right of the nuns' choir, are some old 




MADONNA ENTHRONED WITH SAINTS 

GIOVANNI BELLINI 
(S. Zaccaria) 



SESTIERE DI CASTELLO 97 

Venetian paintings by Antonio Vivarini, very bright and 
lovely things. In the nuns' choir itself, with fine inlaid stalls 
of the fifteenth century, is a Madonna and Child with saints, 
possibly by Lorenzo Lotto. 

From the Campo di S. Zaccaria we proceed due south to 
the Riva degli Schiavoni, the quay of the Dalmatians. Here 
in old days there were, as to-day, many inns. As we see it, 
however, the Riva is not very old, since it only got its present 
breadth in 1780. Before that it was a narrow quay, paved 
in 1324, but it had always had, I suppose, its beautiful curved 
shape, in which half the loveliness of Venice is surely hid.^ 

We pass along the Riva, so picturesque in the sunshine, 
with its many boats and coloured sails and smell of ships, till 
we come to the Church of La Pieta. Here is a fine work by 
Moretto, behind the High Altar, of Christ in the house of Simon. 
It is not a religious picture, but it has its own nobility and 
beauty and helps to explain much in the later work of Paolo 
Veronese. It was not painted for this church, or indeed for 
any church, but for the refectory of S. Fermo at Monselice. 

So we pass on, crossing the Rio dell' Arsenale, into quite 
another Venice than any we have yet seen, poorer, dirtier, more 
ragged; and yet how full of the sun, how fulfilled with the sea ! 
We pass the Church of S. Biagio, built in 1052 and rebuilt in 
1754, and so at last to the end of the Riva, which here ends 
suddenly in the Via Garibaldi, a street of poor houses in the 
Veneta Marina, built in 1807 by filling up a canal. Here 
is the Church of S. Francesco da Paola, a sixteenth-century 
building which was attached to a convent, suppressed in 
1 806, which had in its time replaced a hospital for the infirm. 
Opposite S. Francesco da Paola is the monument to Garibaldi 
and the shady park which brings us at last into the Giardini 
Pubblici, which were laid out by order of Napoleon in 1807. 
More than one church and convent were destroyed to make 
* I describe the way to S. Pietro di Castello on foot along the Riva, but 
it is a long and tiring walk, and there is not much to be had in the way of 
pictures. A gondola or steamer may well be taken here on the Riva to 
S. Pietro di Castello. 
H 



98 VENICE AND YENETIA 

room for this pleasant recreation ground. Here stood the 
Churches and Convents of S. Domenico, of S. Niccolb da Bari, 
of S. Antonio Abate, and the Cappuccine. But one church 
indeed remains to-day on the island, S. Giuseppe di Castello, 
where we find an altarpiece by Tintoretto and an Adoration ■ 
of the Shepherds by Paolo Veronese. 

Hence we return to the Via Garibaldi and follow it to the end, 
taking the last bridge on the left, and making our way thence 
to the bridge that joins the Isola di Castello to what we may 
call Venice proper. This picturesque island was one of the 
largest of those on which Venice was originally founded. It 
It was called Olivolo and only, I think, Castello when it had 
been surrounded by walls. There was a small church here 
called S. Sergio e S. Bacco as early as 650, but this was 
destroyed, and in 774 a church was built on the site to 
S. Peter. This church became the Cathedral of Venice. 
It was destroyed in the sixteenth century, when the present 
church was built. The Campanile is, however, of the fifteenth 
century. 

It was in this church during the tenth century that one of 
the most amazing raids was made by the Dalmatian pirates. 
It happened in this way. It was the custom at that time in 
the city of Venice for all those who wished to marry to get this 
rite performed on one day, 31 January, the anniversary of the 
translation of the body of S. Mark, in the Church of S. Pietro 
d' Olivolo. The whole affair was, as one may imagine, a great 
festa ; the Doge was present in state, and the whole cere- 
mony was consecrated by many old customs, among them 
this, that each bride on that day bore her dowry with her. 
Now it happened that the pirates who then and later infested 
these coasts and waters, knowing of this, conceived a plot 
whereby they might at one attempt possess themselves of a 
goodly booty of money and jewels and of many fair women, 
who might be sold for a good price or kept as slaves. Their 
scheme was nothing less than to carry off the Venetian brides 
on the morning of 31 January, when, before sunrise, they 
assembled in the Church of S. Peter to await their betrothed 



SESTIERE DI CASTELLO 99 

husbands. This bold scheme they carried out most success- 
fully j they got the maids and the booty aboard their ships, not 
one escaped, and hoisting sail they set out for home. They 
had reckoned, however, without the Venetians. The news 
soon spread, and, headed by the Doge, all male Venice, with the 
case-makers at their head, set out in pursuit, boats were 
manned and the race began. Now, as God willed, the breeze 
that had promised well at sunrise presently came to nothing. 
Pursued and pursuers took to the oars, and in such a business 
and in these conditions the Venetians were the better men. 
They pursued the pirates, came up with them, grappled their 
ships, and without mercy slew every single Dalmatian, and 
rescued their brides, who in the hurry had not been hurt. In 
memory of Venetian courage the Doge went in procession to 
the church of the case-makers who had headed the pursuit — 
S. Maria Formosa — on the Feast of the Purification, the 2nd 
of February — the Feast of the Maries as it came to be called 
in Venice — and the case-makers then made him a present 
of straw hats and wine. 

Nothing of any account remains in S. Pietro save an ancient 
episcopal chair, to remind us that for many centuries, till 1807, 
in fact, it was the Cathedral of Venice. 

From S. Pietro di Castello we return to S. Biagio, and 
thence make our way through the byways to the right to the 
Arsenal. First built in 1104 and several times enlarged, so 
that in its best days sixteen thousand workmen were employed 
here, it was for many centuries the true naval port and building 
yard of Venice. On either side the entrance we see the lions 
which Doge Francesco Morosini brought from Athens in 1687. 
The sitting lion stood on the inner shore of the harbour of the 
Piraeus and gave the harbour its name of Porto Leone ; the 
other was set upon the Sacred Way, a little outside the city. 
The first is cut and engraved with Norse runes that read : 
" Hakon with Ulf, Asmund and Orn conquered this port — 
Piraeus. These men and Harold the Tall (1040) imposed 
great fines because of the revolt of the Greeks. Dalk has 
been detained in distant lands. Egil was waging war together 



100 VENICE AND VENETIA 

with Ragnar in Roumania and Armenia. Asmund en- 
graved these runes in combination with Asgeir, Thorleif, 
Thord, and Ivar by desire of Harold the Tall, although the 
Greeks on reflection opposed it." ^ 

The Museum, now the only thing to be visited here that is 
of much interest, contains the remains of the Bucentauro, the 
ship of the Doge, destroyed by the French, in which he went 
forth in the name of Venice every Ascension Day to wed the 
Adriatic. 

If on coming out of the Arsenal we turn immediately to the 
right we shall come to the Church of S. Martino, founded by 
the first fugitives from the mainland. The present building is 
the work of Jacopo Sansovino, or at least from his designs. 
To the right of the High Altar there is a Last Supper by 
Girolamo da S. Croce. 

Close by, in the now destroyed Cistercian convent La 
Celestia, Carlo Zeno, the hero of Chioggia was buried by his 
men in 1418. 

From S. Martino we pass to S. Giovanni in Bragora, 
founded by S. Magno in the seventh century, but in its present 
form dating from the eighteenth. On the piers before the choir 
chapel are two works, one by Cima, Constantine and S. Helena 
with the Cross, painted in 1502. Its predella hangs in the left 
aisle and shows three scenes from the Legend of the Cross. 
The other, the Resurrection, was painted in 1492 by Alvise 
Vivarini. Behind the High Altar is another Cima, one of his 
best works, the Baptism of Christ, painted in 1494. On the 
left side of the church is a Last Supper by Paris Bordone, and 
a charming Madonna and Child with SS. Andrew and John 
Baptist by Bartolommeo Vivarini, painted in 1478. 

From the Campo di S. Giovanni in Bragora we proceed 
north past the Church of S. Antonino, which was founded in 
the ninth century and rebuilt in its present form in 1680, to 
S. Giorgio dei Greci, built by the Greeks in 1539. The 
history of the Greek Church in Venice is curious. Here till 
1797, it is said, it remained in communion with the Venetian 

^ Quarterly Review. 



SESTIEEE DI CASTELLO loi 

Church — that Is to say, with Rome. The first chapel of the 
Greeks in the city was the oratory of S. Ursula, and later they 
were to be found at S. Biagio. S. Giorgio dei Greci, however, 
is their own national building. 

We return to S. Antonino and again proceed north to 
S. Giorgio degli Schiavoni, the Dalmatian church. It was 
built in 145 1, and a hundred years later got its present fa9ade 
by Jacopo Sansovino. It is still adorned by Carpaccio's 
famous and well-loved paintings illustrating the lives of the 
three great Dalmatian saints — S. George, S. Jerome, and 
S. Tryphonius. On the left are three scenes from the life of 
S. George : — 

1. S. George and the Dragon. Mounted on a brown horse 
the youthful golden-haired saint pierces the dragon with his 
spear. The princess he has so gallantly rescued stands by 
still fearful. Far away we see a smiling country, a city and 
ships. It is the hour of sunset. 

2. The captive and tamed dragon is brought into the city to 
the father and mother of the princess. 

3. The king and the princess are baptized. 

So much of the story of S. George Carpaccio has painted 
here. 

On the right of the church are three scenes from the life of 
S. Jerome : S. Jerome faces the lion and pacifies him, while 
his companions flee away ; the Death of S. Jerome, a lovely 
and simple composition ; S. Jerome in his study. Beside the 
altar is the picture devoted to S. Tryphonius, who subdues by 
prayer the Basilisk which devastated Albania. Beside this we 
see Our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane and the calling of 
S. Matthew. Over the altar is a Madonna and Child by 
Catena. The upper chamber with its fine ceiling is worth 
a visit. 

Close beside S. Giorgio is the Church of S. Giovanni di 
Malta, which of old belonged to the Knights Templars. The 
Dalmatians had an altar in this church before S. Giorgio was 
built. 

From S. Giorgio we make our way still due north through 



102 VENICE AND VENETIA 

the narrow ways to S. Francesco della Vigna.^ This 
church was originally dedicated to S. Mark, and came 
to the Franciscans from Marco, the son of Doge Pietro Ziani. 
The Franciscans rebuilt it in 1534 with a fagade by Palladio, 
and an interior by Jacopo Sansovino, and restored the 
convent, now a barracks. It contains several fine pictures, 
including a restored Giovanni Bellini, a Madonna and four 
saints, a restored picture of Christ by Girolamo da S. Croce, 
and an Adoration of the Magi, also restored, by Paolo 
Veronese ; but nothing to compare for a moment with the 
glorious enthroned Madonna by Frat' Antonio da Negroponte, 
painted in the middle of the fifteenth century, which hangs in 
the right transept. This is a masterpiece I would walk 
many miles to see, and for which I would leave any sacred 
picture by the later great masters of Venice. It has every 
thing that their works so conspicuously lack, and in every way 
is what we have learnt in Tuscany to expect an altarpiece of 
the Madonna to be. It is as though before our eyes the 
canticle of the Magnificat had become visible, as though in a 
vision we had seen our hearts' desire. 

Leaving S. Francesco, we pass now westward through the 
lanes to SS. Giovanni and Paolo. This is the great 
Dominican church of Venice, and stands, as always, on one 
side of the city, as the Frari, the great Franciscan church, 
does on the other. So it is in Florence and so in Siena. 
The church was begun as early as 1246 on a piece of land given 
to the Dominican Order by Doge Giacomo Tiepolo. It was 
nearly two hundred years in building. But before 1246 there 
is said to have been a Dominican oratory here dedicated to 
S. Daniele, and the Doge is said to have had a vision in 
which he saw this tiny chapel, the Campo covered with 
flowers, and to have heard a voice which said, " This place I 
have chosen for My Preachers." However this may be, the 
Doge gave the ground, then a marsh, to the Dominicans, and 
was himself buried, as we may see, just without the church by 
^ For an interesting article on this church see A. Tessier in Miscel- 
lanea Francescana (Foligno), vol. i, p. 7^ ^t ^^1- 




MADONNA ENTHRONED 

ANTONIO DA NEGROPONTE 
fS. Fi-a>u~esc-o della Vig7ia) 



SESTIERE DI CASTELLO 103 

the fagade. The church has two other connexions with the 
Doges. Here they all lay in state, and a great number of them 
were here buried. If Venice has any other church which 
may stand for her besides S. Mark's it is this, where so many 
of her Doges and her admirals lie buried ; while without, 
as though on guard, rides the noblest of her condottiere, 
Bartolommeo Colleoni, expressed in eternal bronze by the 
greatest of Florentine sculptors, Andrea Verrocchio. This, 
the noblest equestrian statue in the world, is nobly placed in 
the Campo of the great church that holds so much of the 
heroism of Venice. 

There, too, beside the church stands the Scuola di S. Marco, 
one of the finest early Renaissance buildings in the city, and 
peculiarly Venetian in style. It is the work of Martino 
Lombardi, and still fulfils its charitable object, for it is now a 
hospital. 

Entering the vast church itself one is struck by its spacious- 
ness, its monumental effect of largeness and light. Within, to 
the right, is the fine tomb of the Doge Pietro Mocenigo, the 
hammer of the Turks, who died in 1476. This tomb 
with its many statues is the work of Pietro Lombardo. To 
the left is the tomb of another Mocenigo, Doge Giovanni, 
who died in 1455. This is the work of Tullio and Antonio 
Lombardo. Above the entrance lies another Doge of the 
same House, Luigi Mocenigo, who figured at the battle of 
Lepanto, but who lost Cyprus. He died in 1577, and his 
wife is buried with him. 

In the right aisle we come first to a picture by Bissolo of 
the Madonna and Child with saints, over the first altar. Then 
on the left to the monument and tomb of Marc Antonio 
Bragadino (1571), who held Cyprus as long as he could, but 
lost it at last, and was flayed alive by the Turks. Over the 
second altar is a fine early altarpiece of the school of the 
Vivarini, and beside it the tomb of the Senator Alvise Michiel 
(1589). We pass by the vast monument of the Valier, built 
by the pupils of Bernini in the eighteenth century, and enter 
the right transept. Here on the wall is a picture of 



104 VENICE AND VENETIA 

S. Augustine by Bartolommeo Vivarini, painted in 1478. 
Close by is the tomb of Niccolb Orsini the general, with his 
equestrian statue. He faced the League of Cambrai and lost. 
Over the first altar there is a charming Lotto, the Apotheosis 
of S. Antonino of Florence. Over the door is the tomb of 
Dionigi Naldo, the general, by Lorenzo Bregno. 

In the first choir chapel is the tomb of an Englishman, 
Baron Windsor, who died in 1574. In the choir are the 
tombs of Doge Michele Morosini (1382), a fine Gothic work 
with mosaic in the lunette; of Doge Leonardo Loredan 
(1521); of Doge Andrea Vendramin (1478), one of the 
loveliest of all Venetian monuments spoiled by Lorenzo 
Bregno; and of Doge Marco Corner (1368), another fine 
Gothic work. In the second chapel, to the left of the choir, 
is the fine Gothic tomb of Jacopo Cavalli, condottiere of the 
Republic, who died in 1384. It is the work of Massegne. 

The battle of Lepanto is here commemorated in the 
Cappella del Rosario, which was founded in memory of that 
victory in 157 1. The Doge Antonio Venier (1400) lies in the 
tomb over the entrance ; his wife and daughters lie in the 
church in the left transept. The chapel was destroyed by fire 
in 1867. 

The left aisle, too, is full of monuments. There we have 
those of DogePasquale Malipiero (1462), Doge Michele Steno 
(141 3), the splendid monument of Florentine work to Doge 
Tommaso Mocenigo (1423), and the tomb of Doge Niccold 
Marcello (1474), the last by Pietro Lombardo. Close by is 
the equestrian statue of Orazio Baglioni (161 7). 

In the sacristy, to the left of the altar, is a work by Alvise 
Vivarini of Christ bearing His Cross, a fine work by this 
rather rare master. 



VI 
SESTIERE DI S. MARCO 

THE MERCERIA — S. ZULIAN — S. SALVATORE — S. BARTOLOMMEO 
— S. LIO — S. MARIA FORMOSA — S. GIOVANNI CRISOSTOMO — 
FONDACO DEI TEDESCHI — PONTE DI RIALTO — S. VITALE — 
S. STEFANO 

THIS is, as it were, the central division of the three 
sestieri which lie to the north of the Grand Canal. It 
has to the east the largest of all, the sestiere of Castello, and 
to the west that of Cannaregio. The Sestiere di S. Marco really 
comprises all that great promontory of the city which thrusts 
itself southward from the north into the Grand Canal. Its 
boundaries are the Rio del Palazzo and the canals which to 
the left lead out of it just to the north of S. Zulian and enter 
the Grand Canal just above the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, beyond 
the Ponte di Rialto. ^ The best way to examine this region 
will be by way of the Merceria. 

The Merceria leaves the Piazza di S. Marco under the clock- 
tower, and is the oldest and the principal business street of 
the city. Here the sword-makers, the armourers, and the 
drapers and merchants in brocades and stuifs of cloth of gold 
and silver had their shops. Evelyn, who was in Venice 
in 1645, speaks of it very eloquently : " I passed through the 
Merceria," he says, "one of the most delicious streetes in the 
world for the sweetnesse of it, and is all the way on both 
sides tapistred, as it were, with cloth of gold, rich damasks 

' See end-paper map. 
105 



io6 VENICE AND VENETIA 

and other silk, which the shops expose and hang before their 
houses from ye firste floore, and with that variety that for 
neere half ye yeare spent chiefly in this citty, I hardly remem- 
ber to have seene ye same piece twice exposed ; to this add 
the perfumers, apothecaries shops, and the innumerable cages 
of nightingales which they keepe, that entertaine you with 
their melody from shop to shop, so that, shutting your eyes, j 
you would imagine yourselfe in the country, when indeede 
you are in the middle of the sea. It is almost as silent as the 
middle of a field, there being neither rattling of coaches nor 
trampling of horses. This streete, paved with brick and 
exceedingly cleane, brought us through an arch into the 
famous piazza of St. Marc. Over the arch stands that admir- 
able clock celebrated next to that of Strassburg for its many 
movements ; amongst which about 1 2 and 6, which are their 
houres of Ave Maria, when all the towne are on their knees, 
come forth the three kinges led by a starr, and passing by ye 
image of Christ in His Mother's armes, do their reverence, 
and enter into ye clock by another doore. At the top of this 
turret another automaton strikes ye quarters ; an honest mer- 
chant told me that walking in the piazza he saw the fellow 
who kept the clock struck with this hammer so forceably, as 
he was stooping his head neare the bell to mende something 
amisse at the instant of striking, that being stunn'd he reel'd 
over the battlements and broke his neck." 

It is perhaps difficult for the traveller to realize that this 
street, which seems so narrow and tortuous, is in fact, as it 
has been for many centuries, the chief thoroughfare of Venice 
apart from the canals. It leads from the Piazza di S. Marco 
past two great churches, S. Zulian and S. Salvatore to the 
Fondaco dei Tedeschi and the Rialto. And to-day it is 
divided into three main parts, which get their names from 
these churches and from the clock-tower whence the Merceria 
starts; they are known as the Merceria dell' Orologio, di S. 
Zulian, and di S. Salvatore. Nor was it merely as the great 
street of the shops and of the merchants that the Merceria 
was celebrated. It was the great processional way of Venice, 



■' .lajL^ gip'— "■ " ■■, — I • ^ mmmmmmmm 







THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE 



1 



SESTIERE DI S. MARCO 107 

apart from the Grand Canal. The Patriarchs and Procurator! 
made their entry into Venice on their appointment by the 
Merceria, which was gaily decorated for the occasion. They 
came from the Rialto bridge, then and till late years the only 
bridge across the Grand Canal. But this part of the Mer- 
ceria, the Merceria dell' Orologio, is perhaps most famous as 
the scene of the Feria dell' Ascensione, the Fair of the Ascen- 
sion, which accompanied the great ritual of the wedding of the 
Adriatic which the Doge performed at the Lido every year on 
that day. We shall speak of that splendid ceremony later; 
here we shall deal with the fair which accompanied it, advan- 
tage being taken of the presence of many strangers in Venice 
drawn thither by the national feast and the Indulgences the 
Pope had conferred upon all visits paid at that time to the 
shrine of S. Mark. 

The fair had its origin in 1180. It was held, as I have 
said, in the Merceria dell' Orologio and in that part of the 
Piazza especially into which that street opens. It began on 
the Vigil of the Ascension, whence its popular name of Sensa 
arose, and it lasted officially for the eight following days, but 
actually it was prolonged by the people for fifteen. Innu- 
merable booths were built in the Piazza, the shops and stalls 
of the Merceria were decorated, and there were exposed the 
rarest and loveliest productions of the Orient side by side 
with Venetian work in cloth of gold and silver, in glass, in 
iron and armour and the beaks of ships. All was gaiety and 
profusion, and I suppose that nowhere to-day can such a 
scene be witnessed, save, perhaps, in Seville at Easter. One 
strange and characteristic feature of the Venetian fair must 
not be altogether passed over. In the midst of the Feria a 
great doll dressed as a woman in the latest fashion was set up, 
and if we may believe the report served as a sort of model for 
the mode during the year. One must not, however, confuse 
this Feria with that which the Senate arranged in 1776 
and the following years. This later fair was a much more 
luxurious and corrupt business. A kind of vast exhibition 
was then organized in a large building erected here for the 



io8 VENICE AND YENETIA 

occasion, of which the celebrated Macaruzzi was part. This 
was an architectural feature apparently of some beauty. Oval 
in shape, it was divided into four parts within, where in the 
innermost circuit the most precious goods were exposed, those 
of less quality and price being arranged in the exterior parts. 
But the great feature of this later fair was the exhibition of 
dolls in the Merceria, all dressed in the latest styles and 
evidently a development of the great figure that adorned the 
earlier Feria. They were a sort of fashion plates, and set the 
mode for men as well as women. The people attended in 
domino, the women often dressed as men. The fair seems 
at last to have degenerated into a sort of disgraceful carnival 
where every sort of licence was allowed and public gambling 
was the chief attraction. 

The Merceria is still, I suppose, robbed though it be of all 
its riches, the busiest street in the city, through which it 
winds so tortuously that but for the stream of people one 
would soon lose one's way. 

After passing the Calle del Cappello Nero, where one of the 
old inns of Venice, founded in 1341, still phes its trade, we 
come in the second street on the right to the Church of 
S. Zulian or S. Giuliano. A church has stood here under 
this dedication since the ninth century, but the building we 
see was designed by Jacopo Sansovino in 1553, and was for 
the most part built by Alessandro Vittoria. Over the door- 
way is a bronze statue of Thomas of Ravenna, the founder, by 
Sansovino. Within the church is spacious, though dark. It 
contains nothing of very great interest : a Madonna and Child 
with four saints by Boccaccio Boccaccini over the first altar on 
the left, a Coronation of the Blessed Virgin by Girolamo da 
S. Croce over the High Altar, and some reliefs and statues by 
Campagna in the chapel to the north of the High Altar, nothing 
else, save an early Madonna, a miracle picture, in the chapel 
at the top of the south aisle. 

Returning to the Merceria, we come into that part of it 
which of old was devoted to the sale of hats and of leather 
work. The first bridge we cross is the Ponte dei Berrettai, 



SESTIERE DI S. MARCO 109 

whose name commemorates this. Thence we enter the Mer- 
ceria di S. Salvatore and soon see the noble and lofty choir of 
the church of that name between the close-packed houses in 
the vista of the street. 

There has been a Church of S. Salvatore on this site since 
very early times. Under the porch of that which stood here 
in the twelfth century Pope Alexander III is said to have 
spent the night as a fugitive, and an old shrine on the 
front of the present church commemorates this ; but S. Sal- 
vatore is not the only church in Venice which claims this 
honour. The story goes — it is told in the pictures that deco- 
rate the north wall of the Sala del Maggior Consiglio in the 
Doge's Palace — that in 11 77 Pope Alexander III came to 
Venice as a refuge from the wrath of the Emperor Frederic 
Barbarossa. He came as a pilgrim, disguised, and having 
nowhere to lay his head, spent the night in the porch of this 
church, where in the morning he was recognized and brought 
with all honour to the Doge. Another tale has it that he 
served in the kitchen of the convent of S. Maria della Carit^ 
for some six months, till indeed he was recognized by a French- 
man who had once seen him in Rome. All this was in the 
time of Doge Sebastiano Ziani, who, as the pictures in the 
Doge's Palace tell us, brought the Emperor to his knees before 
the Pope in the porch of S. Mark's Church. 

The present church of S. Salvatore was built by Tullio 
Lombardo in the first part of the sixteenth century, and is, 
perhaps, the finest Renaissance church in Venice. The 
facade, however, is a baroque work of the middle of the seven- 
teenth century. It contains two works of the highest interest 
— the Transfiguration, by Titian, in the choir, and the Annun- 
ciation, by the same master, over the third altar in the right 
aisle. The first is a work in the master's later style, painted 
after 1560 but before 1566, when Vasari saw it. It has, how- 
ever, unhappily been much restored and gravely injured. The 
Annunciation, painted at the same period, is still perfect. 
Not one of Titian's religious pictures has the power to move 
us as any work by Giotto or Simone Martini can do, but if 



no VENICE AND YENETIA 

there be any in Venice that may compare with the Entomb- 
ment, in Paris, for instance, or the tremendous Crowning 
with Thorns at Munich — it is certainly here in S. Salvatore we 
shall find it. Titian himself does not seem to have thought 
much of the Transfiguration, according to Vasari ; but I some- 
times think that, in spite of its restoration and injury, it is the 
most profound and powerful of all those works which speak to 
us so insistently rather of God than of man. Here, for a 
moment, we seem to forget man altogether in a sudden appari- 
tion of God Himself. The Son of Man is transfigured indeed, 
and something for once in the passionate gesture of those who 
make up that little company impresses us almost with the 
unction of a Christian hymn. Nor is the Annunciation less 
profound in conception or less wonderful in achievement. 
These are works of Titian's age, when maybe the glamour of 
the world was beginning to be a burden. At any rate they 
seem to have astonished the Venetians ; the good monks of 
S. Salvatore even were dissatisfied, for, as they said, the picture 
seemed to be unfinished. Therefore, so the tale goes, Titian 
signed it twice. " Titian fecit fecit ^^ we read on the canvas — 
"Titian made it indeed." That city, already so full of levity, 
failed to understand the master when at last he turned to 
express the solitude that fills the soul and cries for some 
apprehension of the eternal. 

One other important picture the church possesses. I mean 
the Supper at Emmaus, attributed to Giovanni Bellini, but 
really the work of some unknown painter which seems to have 
fixed, or at least to represent, the type of composition accepted 
in Venice for those religious subjects in which sacred and 
profane are mingled. 

Nor do these three pictures sum up the treasures of the 
church. The beautiful organ shutters are the work of Fran- 
cesco Vecelli, Titian's brother, and in their Giorgionesque 
loveliness are worthy of all attention, though their author 
seems to have been so little content with his achievement 
that he gave up the career of an artist for the nobler business 
of a soldier. 



SESTIERE DI S. MAECO iii 

And then over the second altar on the right Is one of Cam- 
pagna's Madonnas surrounded by angels, while close by is 
the monument of Doge Francesco Venier, who died in 1556. 
In the right transept is the tomb of that Queen of Cyprus, 
Catharine Cornaro, who in 1489 ceded her island to the 
Republic in which after all she was born. The bronze monu- 
ment of the Doges Girolamo and Lorenzo Priuli, who were 
brothers, is in the left aisle. 

We come out of the quiet church into the narrow and busy 
way and pass on to the Campo di S. Bartolommeo with its 
statue of Carlo Goldoni, placed here in 1883. At the corner is 
the Church of S. Bartolommeo, which on its foundation in 840 
was called S. Demetrio, and only came to S. Bartholomew 
in 1 1 70. As we see it, however, it is a work of the eighteenth 
century, and its only possession is the charming work Sebas- 
tiano del Piombo did here in his youth under the influence of 
Giorgione. His two pictures, two saints in each, SS. Sinibald 
and Louis on the right, SS. Bartholomew and Sebastian on 
the left, hang on either side of the organ. 

If we turn out of the Campo di S. Bartolommeo sharp to the 
right and cross a small canal, we shall find ourselves in the 
Campiello di S. Lio. The little Church of S. Lio here, was, it 
is said, founded by the Badoer ; it was rebuilt, however, in the 
eleventh century, when it was dedicated to S. Leo IX. The 
church we see, however, dates from the seventeenth century, 
and was restored in the end of the eighteenth. It possesses 
one precious thing — a picture of St. James the Apostle by 
Titian. The picture is dirty, but can be fairly well seen in the 
early morning. It is a work of Titian's late period, painted 
about 1565 to 1570, and is, according to Dr. Gronau, the 
most neglected work by the master in Venice. 

We leave the Campiello by the continuation of the street 
by which we entered it, and where it ends we turn to the left, 
cross a canal and come into the Campo di S. Maria Formosa, 
where stands the church of that name, which is said to have 
been founded in the seventh century by S. Magno. It was 
entirely rebuilt in the end of the fifteenth century. S. Maria 



112 VENICE AND VENETIA 

Formosa was the church of the fruitsellers and case-makers 
and gunners, whose scuole were close by under the Campanile. 
It was the case-makers who were chiefly responsible for the 
rescue of the brides carried off by the pirates from S. Pietro 
di Castello in the tenth century,^ and for this cause on 
2 February, the Feast of the Purification or Candlemas, the 
Doge used to visit this church. For us, however, the church 
is chiefly remarkable, I suppose, as possessing Palma Vec- 
chio's lovely altarpiece, in the chapel of the gunners in the 
right aisle. Here we see their patron saint, S. Barbara, with 
four attendant saints, while above is a Pieta. This picture, 
which has won the admiration of mankind, was painted under 
the influence of Giorgione, and is in many ways, I suppose, 
Palma 's loveliest achievement. It is divided into four compart- 
ments. In the midst stands S. Barbara crowned, the palm of 
martyrdom in her hand. Beside the pedestal on which she 
stands are two cannon of the gunners. And indeed she is 
worthy to inspire any soldier. On her right are SS. Sebastian 
and John Baptist, on her left SS. Anthony and Dominic, 
painted in full length but on a smaller scale than the central 
figure. Above in the lunette over all lies the dead Christ. 

There are other fine works in the church, as that altarpiece 
by Bartolommeo Vivarini, in which we see the Birth of Our 
Lady, and, again, the Mater Misericordiae, and, again, SS. 
Joachim and Anne : this over the second altar on the right. 
In the south transept we find a Last Supper by Leandro 
Bassano, and in a chapel reached by a staircase a Madonna 
and Child by Sassoferrato, and, far better, a Madonna and 
Child by Pietro da Messina. 

From S. Maria Formosa we make our way back past S. Lio 
to the Campo di S. Bartolommeo. Following the Merceria 
here onward, we pass the back of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, 
and crossing a side canal presently come to the Church of 
S. Giovanni Crisostomo, which really stands in the Sestiere di 
Cannaregio. 

This church was founded in the eleventh century, but was 
^ See supra, p. 98. 



SESTIERE DI S. MAECO 113 

completely rebuilt at the end of the fifteenth by Moro Lom- 
bardo. Its greatest treasure is an altarpiece by Giovanni Bellini. 
This stands over the second altar on the right, and represents 
a beautiful country-side in which we see S. Jerome seated, his 
great book resting on the bough of a fig-tree, while beside him 
stand S. Augustine and S. Christopher. This work, one of 
the loveliest by the master in all Venice, where his works are 
so plentiful, was painted in 15 13, when he was eighty-seven 
years old. The most serene and dear of all Venetian masters 
seems to have turned to landscape in his old age with a 
sudden and new-found joy, as though only when he must 
leave the world at last had he found how close the hills, the 
sunshine, and the sea were to his heart. They are like a new 
thought in all the work of his last period, and they give to his 
work something of that musical quality which we find in the 
paintings of Giorgione and the young Titian. Something 
serene, too ! What can be more full of peace and reconciliation 
than this quiet valley at sunset where these three have fore- 
gathered as though by chance and are discussing, doubtless, 
the infinite ways of life, that lead to a common end, as serene, 
one might dare to hope, as this, while the sun sets over hill 
and valley ? It is surely in the serenity of such work as this 
that the soul of Europe is most truly expressed, her faith in 
God and in herself. I seem to see in such a work the very 
simplicity and courage of that old Venice, the true city of 
the sea, which was a stranger to superstition and whom no 
one could make afraid. 

S. Giovanni Crisostomo possesses another fine picture in 
the S. Chrysostom with SS. Augustine, John Baptist, Liberale, 
Catherine, Agnes, and Mary Magdalen over the High Altar, 
by Sebastiano del Piombo. This painter had been a pupil of 
Bellini, but, attracted by the new work of Giorgione, he left his 
old master to study under the new painter. This splendid 
altarpiece is the result of that change. There enthroned under 
avast portico, through which we see the country-side and the hills 
with a little town upon one of them, is S. Chrysostom writing 
in his book. About him the saints I have named are grouped, 
I 



114 VENICE AND YENETIA 

the men before him, the women behind. Here, too, some 
wonderful serenity seems to be expressed, almost in spite of 
the painter, by that far-away glimpse of the world through 
the open loggia. Here, too, we see something new in Venetian 
painting, something living and yet without violence. The 
genius of Giorgione has suddenly revealed to all men just for 
a moment a new charm, a new beatitude in life and in the 
world. 

Close by S. Crisostomo, as I said, stands the Fondaco 
dei Tedeschi, the fagade of which towards the canal was 
painted by Giorgione with frescoes whose last colours still stain 
the waters of the Canalazzo in the shadow of the Ponte di 
Rialto. Before 1180 there was only a traghetto here, but in 
that year a bridge of boats was made, and in the middle of the 
thirteenth century a bridge was built on wooden piles. This 
was destroyed in the Tiepolo conspiracy, and though it was 
rebuilt it broke down again in 1450, during the marriage festa 
of the Marquis of Ferrara. The present stone bridge was 
begun by Antonio da Ponte in 1588. 

From the Ponte di Rialto it is well to proceed by gondola 
or by steamboat to the Accademia Station. After crossing the 
iron bridge there into the Campo di S. Vitale, we come to the 
Church of S. Vitale, which was founded in 1084 by the Doge 
Vitale Falier, rebuilt in 1105, and again, as we see it, in the 
seventeenth century. It contains behind the High Altar a 
precious work by Carpaccio of S. Vitale on horseback. There 
we see the Saint in full armour mounted, with S. Valeria, his 
wife, and S. George, on one side, and S. James and S. John 
Baptist on the other. Above, on a balcony over a fine arcade 
through which we see again a fair country-side, stand S. Vitale's 
two sons with their guardians, S. Peter and S. Andrew ; in the 
sky appear in glory the Virgin and Child. 

Beyond S. Vitale the Campo Morosini opens. It is named 
after the famous Francesco Morosini, but was of old called 
and is still better known as Campo di S. Stefano, for S. 
Stephen's Church stands within it. The bullfights were held 
in this Piazza in Carnival, the last in 1802. 



SESTIERE DI S. MARCO 115 

The first Church of S. Stephen, with its Augustinian convent, 
was built here in 1294, but not finished till the earlier years 
of the fourteenth century, when the lovely door of the fagade 
was made. The interior is charming and spacious. Over the 
beautiful doorway is the equestrian statue of the Doge Con- 
tarini, a work of the seventeenth cetury ; far finer, however, is 
the sixteenth-century tomb of Jacopo Suriano the physician 
close by. Another seventeenth-century Doge, the famous 
general who now names the Campo, lies beneath the pave- 
ment of the nave. In the choir are two saints by Bar- 
tolommeo Vivarini, exquisite fair works. There, too, are some 
admirable statues by some pupil of Pietro Lombardo, fifteenth- 
century work. 

More delightful, however, than anything in the church are 
the cloisters, which are contemporary with the church and 
convent, but were restored in 1532. 

From S. Stefano we pass back into the piazza and then to 
the left to the Campo di S. Maurizio, with its church of very 
ancient foundation, which, however, contains nothing to 
interest us. Thence we proceed straight on past S. Maria 
Zobenigo, a church founded in 900 and rebuilt by Sardi 
in 1680 at the expense of Rome, Corfd, Padua, Candia, 
Spalatro, and Pavia, whose plans we see on the fagade. Con- 
tinuing on our way across the bridges, we come to the Campo 
di S. Moise, where that church of most ancient foundation, 
formerly dedicated to S. Vittore, offends the critical with its 
hideous fagade. The old church was built by Mois^ Venier 
in the tenth century ; the fagade, however, is the work of 
Alessandro Tremignan, and was rebuilt at a cost of 30,000 
ducats. A Scotsman lies within, John Law by name, the 
famous financier, who died in Venice in some poverty in 
1729. 

From S. Moise we pass into the narrow way that brings 
us immediately back into the Piazza di S. Marco. 



VII 
SESTIERE DI CANNAREGIO 

S. CANCIANO — S. MARIA DEI MIRACOLI — SS. APOSTOLI — FONDA- 
MENTA NUOVA — CASA DEGLI SPIRITI — I GESUITI — 

S. CATERINA S. FELICE PALAZZO GIOVANELLI S. MAR- 

ZIALE — MADONNA DEL ORTO — S. GIOBBE — THE SCALZI — 
PALAZZO LABIA — S. MARCUOLA 

THE Sestiere di Cannaregio includes all that part of Venice 
to the north of the Grand Canal between the railway 
station and SS. Giovanni and Paolo and S. Giovanni 
Crisostomo. Here we have a great district, through which 
passes the Cannaregio and in which of old the Ghetto stood, 
but which is to-day, I suppose, the part of Venice least fre- 
quented by the stranger and the poorest in great churches 
and monuments, yet it includes the SS. Apostoli, the Gesuiti, 
S. Maria dei Miracoli, the Palazzo Giovanelli, the whole stretch 
of the Fondamenta Nuova, the Madonna del Orto, S. Mar- 
cuola, S. Felice, to say nothing of the broadest thoroughfare 
in Venice, the Via Vittorio Emanuele. The Palaces on that 
part of the Grand Canal in this district include the Palazzo 
Vendramin and the C^ d' Oro, and are in no way either in 
number or splendour inferior to those in any other part of 
Venice. Yet it cannot be denied that this is the poorest of the 
sesHeri to the north of the Grand Canal, and that in its general 
character it may be better compared with the southern sestieri 
than with either S. Marco or Castello. 

In order to explore this wide region one does well to set out 

Il6 



SESTIERE DI CANNAREGIO 117 

from the Piazza di S. Marco for the Rialto either by steamer, 
gondola, or on foot by the Merceria. Arrived at the foot of the 
Rialto bridge in the Piazza di S. Bartolommeo with its statue of 
Goldoni, one follows the Merceria, or rather the continuation 
of it, past S. Giovanni Crisostomo, when, after crossing a 
canal, one turns sharply to the right to come in a few minutes 
into the Campo di S. Canciano before the church of that 
name. This church is supposed to have owed its foundation 
to the fugitives from Aquileia; but as we see it, it is, of 
course, of much later foundation, the facade, for instance, 
dating from 1760. Nothing of interest remains within the 
church, but close by at the other end of the Campo stands 
one of the most beautiful architectural treasures of the city — 
I mean the church of S. Maria dei Miracoli. This was built 
in 1480 by Angelo Amadi, the nephew of Elena Badoer, "the 
most beautiful Venetian of her day," who lived close by in 
this quarter. He built it to receive a picture of the Madonna 
supposed to be miraculous, which Francesco Amadi, his uncle, 
the husband of the beautiful Elena, had painted, concerning 
which there was a considerable litigation. For it seems that 
in order to satisfy the crowds who came to worship it, this 
picture had been hung in a shrine built into the wall of a 
house here belonging to the Barozzi, so that in time they 
claimed possession of the picture. It was for this reason that 
Angelo Amadi, when the case was won, built the church of 
S. Maria dei Miracoli by the hands of Pietro Lombardo to 
house the picture, which was still venerable. There is no other 
Renaissance church in Venice to compare with this; both 
within and without it is altogether lovely, nor can we suf- 
ficiently praise its quadrangular domed choir uplifted above 
the nave, its beautiful ambones, the fine barrel vaulting with 
its gilded coffers by Girolamo da Treviso, nor the rich marble 
and carvings with which Pietro Lombardo adorned it. 

Returning past S. Canciano westward over the Ponte 
S. Canciano through the Morosini quarter, where that great 
family had so many of its houses, from the Palazzo Falier, 
where Doge Marino Falier had his house, to SS. Apostoli, 



ii8 VENICE AND VENETIA 

a church founded by S. Magno, as the tradition tells us, at 
the request of the twelve Apostles, who appeared to him in a 
vision and bade him build a church in their honour where he 
should observe twelve cranes to assemble. This early build- 
ing, if it ever existed, had totally disappeared in the sixteenth 
century, when another church was built here, to be itself 
destroyed and rebuilt in the eighteenth century, and, indeed, 
all that remains of the sixteenth-century church is the chapel 
of the Corner family. Two pictures of much interest and 
beauty remain there : an altarpiece of the Communion of 
S. Lucy, an exquisite but restored work by Tiepolo, and to 
the left of the choir a work by Paolo Veronese, the Manna in 
the Wilderness. 

It is here by SS. Apostoli that we enter that broad way, the 
Corso Vittorio Emanuele, which was opened in 1871-1872. 
Here on the right is the church of S. Sofia, of an old founda- 
tion, rebuilt in 1698. We pass the backs of the Palazzi 
Sagredo and Ca d' Oro, and then on the right a Campo opens, 
into which we turn. Quite at the end of it we turn left and 
then right, and keep on our way till after crossing two canals 
we come presently out on the Fondamenta Nuova. These 
splendid quays were built of stone in 1589, when this part of 
Venice was thought to be wonderfully healthy and was much fre- 
quented.^ To-day it is quite deserted by the well-to-do classes, 
and is delivered over to the poor, but even they do not seem 
to care for it, and the place is neglected. It looks on the 
cemetery island and beyond to Murano, and it is from here 
that the steamers ply to Murano, Burano, and Torcello. At 
the end of the Fondamenta where we stand we see across the 
waters of the Sacca della Misericordia the Casino degli Spiriti, 
a lovely building that stands in the garden of the Contarini 
del Zaffo, and was built by them at the end of the sixteenth 
century, and is said and believed by all Venice to be haunted. 
And, in fact, there is something strange and weird, if only in 
the extraordinary echo that haunts the house and garden, so 
that you cannot wander there without hearing sudden breath- 
^ Cf. H. A, Douglas, op. cit., p. 208. 



SESTIERE DI CANNAREGIO 119 

less voices that doubtless by some trick of nature or of art 
come from the Fondamenta, which yet ever seems too far 
away for any voice to be borne thence to this lonely and 
deserted abode. The story goes that long and long ago one 
of the Contarini lived here with his wife, who bore him a child, 
to whom his friend who had acted as groomsman at his wed- 
ding stood as godfather or compare di S. Giovanni, a relationship 
only less close and sacred than that of father. Now it hap- 
pened that by and by the lady and the compare fell violently in 
love, and as this relationship was, even in Venetian society, 
impossible, being indeed a kind of incest, all three — for the 
husband was aware of it — lived in complete misery. In this 
misery the lover died, perhaps by his own hand, and hearing 
this and missing him the lady died also. At the point of death 
she called to her her maid and bade her see that none but 
she should watch beside her bier, and when she was assured 
of this she sighed a little and briefly departed. Now as the 
maid watched beside her dead mistress, the room being 
lighted by four torches, one at each corner of the bed, as 
she mumbled her prayers, even at midnight, the door opened, 
and she saw the lover enter slowly and softly as ghosts move. 
She saw him go to the bed where her dead lady lay and raise 
her up. And she rose, and saying nothing, began to dress ; 
then taking her by the hand, the ghost led the way, the 
lady followed, and the maid, seizing a torch, followed also to 
see what would befall. And they went down into the roots of 
the house to the last and coldest cellar. There suddenly the 
lover struck the torch from the maid's hand and she fell down 
in a swoon. Such is the tale. But there are good reasons 
why the Casa degli Spiriti should be reputed haunted without 
pinning our faith to such a poor story as that. To begin with, 
it is lonely and set in a misty world that is often lost in the 
fog of the half-dead lagoon when the other side of Venice is in 
the sun. Then for many years the Venetians were wont to 
rest their dead just here on their way to S. Michele, and 
beside all this, it is known to have been a haunt of smugglers 
for many years — of smugglers who would use all their in- 



120 VENICE AND VENETIA 

genuity to invent, or to encourage belief in, such a story as 
that I have set out above. None of these tales, however, would 
seem to explain the fact that even to-day and in the sunlight 
the Casa degli Spiriti is a weird and curious place where, as 
you make your way through garden or house, you will often 
be astonished by a voice at your elbow, by a step at your side 
for which you will most assuredly be at a loss to account. 

As one passes along the Fondamenta one presently sees the 
great statues of the fagade of the Church of the Gesuiti up 
against the sky. It is but a step down a street on the right 
to the church door. As we see it, the church could, I sup- 
pose, have been created by no one but the Jesuits; it is 
so utterly barbarous in its flaming vulgarity and crude, in- 
solent assurance, its flamboyant splendour. But there was 
a church here in the twelfth century which belonged to the 
Crociferi. The place was bought in 1657 on the second 
expulsion of the Crociferi by the Jesuits, who rebuilt the 
church as we see it. Their society was suppressed in 1773 
in Venice and their convent turned into a barracks. They 
returned, however, in 1844. Like the cancer, to which 
Cardinal Manning likened them, they are hard to extirpate, 
yet with perseverance even this will be accomplished, and 
the Church from being a Jesuit sect become once more 
Catholic. There is not much now in the church to attract us. 
Of old, Tintoretto's Presentation in the Temple hung here, 
but it has been carried away to the Accademia. There still 
remain, however, in the left transept an Assumption from his 
hand, and better still, in the first chapel on the left in the 
nave, a dark, spoilt work of Titian's, the Martyrdom of 
S. Lorenzo, painted in 1538. This picture was ordered, as 
is supposed, by Elisabetta, widow of Lorenzo Massolo, to 
decorate the chapel her husband had built to S. Lorenzo 
in the convent of the Crociferi in Venice. Nothing ca?r- 
be made of this once splendid work to-day. In the chapel 
on the left of the High Altar in this church the Doge Pasquale 
Cicogna (1595) is buried; his tomb is adorned with his 
statue by Campagna. Close by the Gesuiti is the Church 



SESTIERE DI CANNAREGIO 121 

of S. Caterina, where over the High Altar is a splendid 
and enchanting work by Paolo Veronese, the Marriage of 
S. Catherine. 

From S. Caterina we return to the Corso Vittorio 
Emanuele, and follow it across the Rio di S. FeHce, the 
broad canal in which is the island where the Church of S. 
Felice stands, a church founded in the tenth century, 
rebuilt in the middle of the sixteenth. Keeping straight on 
across another canal, we have before us on our right the 
Palazzo Giovanelli, a very noble building, now including three 
old Palaces — Palazzi Priuli, Urbino, and Gemiani. The 
principal of these was the Palazzo Urbino, built originally 
in the thirteenth century by Filippo Calendario. In 1538 the 
Republic gave it to Francesco Maria, Duke of Urbino, 
whom they had employed with his troops in their wars with 
the Pope and Milan. He proved a successful general, and 
among the other gifts and honours rendered him by a grateful 
Republic was this Palace. It seems that he was escorted from 
Padua to the Rialto by sixty young men sent by the Republic 
to meet him. Arrived, he was welcomed by the Doge, the 
foreign ambassadors, and the people, and was led on board 
the Bucentauro, a rare honour. " Thus, amid a flotilla of state 
galleys and gondolas crowded with a lively population in 
gala attire, they conducted their princely guest along the 
Grand Canal, its palaces glittering with brocades and arrases, 
its windows radiant with women. . . ." ^ So they gave 
him the palace which in 1548 was the scene of his son's, 
Guidobaldo II, marriage to Vittoria Farnese, the Pope's 
niece. In 1560 Jacopo Sansovino restored the Palace, which, 
however, did not remain in the hands of the Urbino Dukes, 
but passed to the Dona family by purchase ; they in the 
seventeenth century passed it on to the Giovanelli, who 
still hold it and its treasures. Undoubtedly the greatest of 
these is the picture by Giorgione, which has passed under 
various names — the Family of Giorgione, or simply the Gipsy 
and the Soldier— and which in itself sums up all that we 

"■ Dennistoun's " Dukes of Urbino," ed. Hutton (Lane), vol. ii, p. 431. 



122 VENICE AND YENETIA 

mean by the Giorgionesque in painting. There we see, in a 
delicious landscape of green and shady valley, of stream 
and ruin and towered country town, a woman nude but for 
a cape about her shoulders giving her breast to her child 
in the shadow of the trees by a quiet stream. On the other 
side of this jewelled brook a young man like a soldier — or 
is it a shepherd ? — stands resting on a great lance or crook and 
seems to converse with her. Close by are the ruins of some 
classical building overgrown by moss and lichen, and half hidden 
in the trees, and not far off up the stream in the sunset we see 
the towers and walls and roofs and domes of a little town 
with its bridge across the stream leading to the great old 
fortified gate of the place. But what chiefly attracts us in 
the work is something new we find there, an air of golden 
reality, something dreamlike too, though wholly of this our 
world, an air of music which seems to come to us from 
the noise of the brook or the summer wind in the trees, 
or the evening bells that from far off we seem to hear 
ring Ave Maria. One of the golden moments of life has 
been caught here for ever and perfectly expressed. Heaven, 
it seems, the kingdom of Heaven, is really to be found in our 
midst, and Giorgione has contrived a miracle the direct opposite i 
of that of Angelico ; for he found all the flowers of Tuscany and 1 
the byways of the world in far-off Paradise, but Giorgione 
has found Paradise itself here in our world. And we must 
remember that such a work as this was the true invention of 
Giorgione. Before him there was nothing but Church pictures. , 
It is to him we owe these pieces which have nothing directly f 
to do with religion, but were painted to light up the rooms 
We live in, to bring the sun, if you will, into a cabinet, 
and all the sunset and the quiet out-of-doors into a rich man's 
study. Here, in truth, we have " humanism " in its essence, 
and for once perfectly, understood and expressed. For 
humanism does not consist in learning, or indeed in anything 
but itself : in the wellbeing of man and his brotherhood with 
nature and with his fellows, in the beauty and quietness 
and long-established order of the world he has made, 




THE SOLDIER AND THE GYPSY 

GIORGIONE 

(Palazzo Giovaiidli) 



SESTIERE DI CANNAREGIO 123 

in his pleasure, most truly religious, in such an hour or in 
such a work as this. This vision of Giorgione's, this view 
of culture and of life, in some sort came to leaven all the 
work of the young Titian and the young Tintoretto, the 
great painters not only of Venice but of Europe in the six- 
teenth century. It is true that they forsook this perfection 
for something more real, more passionate, more disastrous, 
and that they came to cling closer to mere life in their work 
than Giorgione, who died at the age of twenty-six, had been 
able or was prepared to do. Yet when we are weary of 
the tragic and confused work in the Scuola di S. Rocco, 
when Titian's Assumption seems at last almost insincere in 
its extraordinary achievement, we return with ever new 
enthusiasm and pleasure to the work that they have achieved 
in Giorgione's spirit and with something of his vision — in the 
Concert of the Pitti, for instance, or the Madonna with 
S. Bridget and S. Ulphus of Madrid, in the Bacchus and 
Ariadne of the Ducal Palace or the Mercury with the Graces 
in the same Hall, where, if we find something harder and 
more brilliant, we shall discern, too, still that spirit of music, 
that air of wellbeing, quietness and delight which, in its 
perfect essence, we find alone, I think, in the work of 
Giorgione himself, and especially in this masterpiece belong- 
ing to Prince Giovanelli. 

Just behind the Palazzo Giovanelli stands the Church 
of S. Fosca, a fine building of the sixteenth century. We 
pass out of the Campo di S. Fosca by a bridge on the right, 
and keeping straight on cross another bridge which brings 
us into the Campo di Marciliano or S. Marziale. The 
church here was built in the fourteenth century and restored 
in the seventeenth and eighteenth. It was far more famous 
of old than it is to-day, for in memory of the great victories 
gained on the day of S. Marziale the Doge used to visit 
the church in state on i July. It still holds a miracle 
picture of the Madonna which came of itself by sea to Venice 
from Rimini ; but its great treasure is the picture of Tobias 
and the Angel by Titian. Vasari says that Titian painted this 



124 VENICE AND YENETIA 

work in 1507, "at the time of the war of the Emperor Maxi- 
milian, as he himself tells us." Crowe and Cavalcaselle, 
however, contradict Vasari, and attribute this picture to the 
years 15 34-1 5 38. Gronau, again, seems to desire to give it a 
later birth still, and speaks of the years 1 540-1 543. He 
finds points of contact between this work and the Annuncia- 
tion in the Scuola di S. Rocco. It is a work of some charm, 
and certainly more delightful than the S. Marziale with 
SS. Peter and Paul over the second altar to the right, which 
was the last work of Tintoretto. But if we would see Tinto- 
retto nearly at his best as a religious painter, we must proceed 
from S. Marziale due north, as directly as we may, to the 
Madonna dell' Orto, where several of his works remain. 

This church, originally dedicated to S. Cristoforo, with the 
convent attached to it, was founded by Tiberio da Parma in 
the fourteenth century. Its dedication was changed by reason 
of a miracle image of the Madonna and Child, now in the 
sacristy, that was found in a garden hard by, and removed to 
the church. The place has passed through many vicissitudes 
even in our time. What we see is a building of the fifteenth 
century, but that was not the first church, which is spoken of 
as being rebuilt even in the fourteenth. In 1855 it was sup- 
pressed and turned into a stable, but was reconsecrated in 
1869. It contains several works by Tintoretto, whose house 
was not far away on the Fondamenta dei Mori. Perhaps the 
loveliest picture here, however, is the S. John Baptist, with 
SS. Peter, Mark, Jerome, and Paul, by Cima. This is a very 
characteristic work, full of a quiet love of nature, of flowers, 
and green leaves. Close by is the seventeenth-century monu- 
ment of Girolamo Gavazza, and beside the fourth altar is a 
picture by Francesco Beccaruzzi, a painter who imitated all 
his great predecessors, of Four Saints and Lorenzo Giustiniani. 
Over the door of the sacristy is an interesting fifteenth-century 
bust of the Blessed Virgin. 

In the choir Tintoretto lies under his great Last Judgment 
and Adoration of the Golden Calf, two of his best religious 
paintings, two early works which Ruskin has most eloquently 



SESTIERE DI CANNAREGIO 125 

praised, and which should be compared with the same 
painter's Presentation in the Temple, a dramatic work of the 
same period in the second chapel here in the north aisle. 
Over the High Altar is an Annunciation by Palma Giovane. 

In the Contarini chapel, in the north aisle, amid the busts 
of members of that famous family, is a fine work by Tinto- 
retto, the Miracle of S. Agnes, and in the fourth chapel is a 
Lotto of fine colour, a Piet^. 

On leaving the church the strange Campanile and the fine 
Gothic fagade with its Annunciation and a statue of S. Chris- 
topher by Bartolommeo Buon the elder should be noted. 

We now make our way south-west through the ghettos, past 
the Tempio Israelitico. The Ghetto Vecchio was probably 
the first set up in Italy, but the second in the world, for the 
Jews made the first themselves when they enclosed a great part 
of Jerusalem and refused strangers admittance. The Ghetto 
Vecchio, however, only dates from the sixteenth century. 
Before that time the Jews, who were first admitted to Venice 
in 1372, lived probably in the Giudecca. This part of Venice 
is still a huddle of houses, and in its own way extremely 
picturesque. 

Thence we proceed due west, along the Cannaregio, which 
at last we leave, to S. Giobbe, a plague church and convent, 
built in the middle of the fifteenth century by Doge Cristoforo 
Moro, the friend of S. Bernardino. The church was restored 
in 1859, ^^^ still contains several interesting and beautiful 
things, carvings by Pietro Lombardo, reliefs by the Robbia of 
Florence, the tomb in the choir of Doge Cristoforo Moro and 
his portrait in the sacristy, where, too, is a fifteenth- century 
bust of S. Bernardino. 

S. Giobbe is a plague church dedicated to the Patriarch 
Job, who, as we know, was plagued with all manner of 
diseases, and therefore is invoked against them. For is it not 
written, " Go to My servant Job and offer up for yourselves a 
burnt offering ; and My servant Job will pray for you : for him 
will I accept " ? It is a Franciscan church, situated, as so 
many of the churches of this Order were, in the poorest and 



126 VENICE AND VENETIA 

most wretched part of the city ; here in Venice close to the 
ghetto, as in London next to the shambles. Of old over j 
i^s High Altar stood the famous Giovanni Bellini, now, alas ! in 
the Accademia (No. 38), of the Madonna enthroned with her 
Son between S. Job, S. John Baptist, S. Sebastian, S. Francis, 
and S. Louis of Toulouse. 

From S. Giobbe we go south to the railway station, and | 
thence along the Grand Canal to the Scalzi Church, built for 
the Carmelites in 1656 by Baldassare Longhena, a fine speci- 
men of baroque architecture. On the ceiling is one of those 
surprisingly light and deUcious paintings by Tiepolo, the 
Miracle of the S. Croce of Loretto. 

We follow the wide street past the front of the Scalzi till 
we come to the Campo di S. Geremia, an eighteenth-century 
building. The Campo here was the place of bullfights. Just 
beyond it stands the Palazzo Labia in the Cannaregio, with 
some fine frescoes by Tiepolo of the story of Antony and Cleo- 
patra in the great hall on the first floor. Here we again cross 
the Cannaregio. It will be noticed that the name of this canale 
is spelt with a double " n." It has nothing to do with canale^ 
but is probably derived from the number of reeds, canna, 
which of old half-filled the way. The bridge here dates from 
1255, when it was wood, the first stone bridge being of 1580. 
The present structure is of the eighteenth century. 

After crossing the Cannaregio we turn left to S. Marcuola, on 
the Grand Canal. It is a church of early foundation, rebuilt 
for the last time in the eighteenth century. It contains an 
early work by Titian of about the year 1508, the Child Jesus 
with S. Catherine and S. Andrew, a strange work that should 
be compared with Titian's Salome in the Doria Gallery in 
Rome. 

In the Campo di S. Marcuola we find a traghetto. Here, 
then, we may cross to the Museo steamer station, and proceed 
thence to the Piazza di S. Marco, or set out thence at once to 
explore the Sestiere di S. Croce. 




CLEOPATRA 

TIEPOLO 
(Palazzo Labbia, Venice j 



VIII 
SESTIERI DI S. CROCE AND S. POLO 

MUSEO CIVICO — S. GIOVANNI DELL' ORIO — S. MARIA MATER 
DOMINI — S. CASSIANO — S. GIOVANNI ELEMOSINARIO — THE 
RIALTO — S. POLO — I FRARI — SCUOLO DI S. ROCCO — 
S. ROCCO 

THE Sestiere di S. Croce, in which we find ourselves at 
the Fondaco dei Turchi, now the Museo Civico, on 
the south of the Grand Canal, includes none of the great 
and important buildings on this side of Venice, which as a 
whole, it will be remembered, is divided, as is that part of the 
city to the north of the Grand Canal, into three parts — the 
Sestiere di S. Croce, the Sestiere di S. Polo, and the Sestiere 
di Dorsoduro. For our purpose, the purpose of exploration, 
however, we shall deal with the Sestiere di S. Polo in this 
chapter with the Sestiere di S. Croce : this for convenience. 
There is in S. Polo, however, enough and to spare for a day's 
pleasure. 

And first as to the Fondaco dei Turchi, now the Civic 
Museum. This Palace remains as to its foundation in some 
obscurity, dates varying from the tenth to the thirteenth 
centuries being given by historians as that of its inception ; 
but there seems little doubt that it was built by the Pesaro 
family. The earliest date seems, indeed, the more likely, if 
we may judge, as I suppose we may, by its architecture, which 
is Byzantine. In 1380 it was bought by the Republic for 

its condottkre Niccolo d' Este, Marquis of Ferrara, but a 

127 



128 VENICE AND VENETIA 

hundred years later it reclaimed it, and in 1520 we find it the 
residence of the Papal legates in Venice. Seven years later 
the House of Este got it back, but they soon parted with it, 
and after it had passed through various hands, Doge 
Antonio Priuli, who had bought it, gave it to the Turks for 
\)i\€\x fondaco in the city. Under the Turks it suffered much, 
but as far as might be it was restored in i860, and in 1880 
was used by the Government as a museum for the Correr 
Collection — a not very important collection of curiosities 
with one or two good pictures — and such it still remains. 
It always must have been one of the most venerable buildings 
on the Grand Canal, or indeed anywhere in Venice. 

Just behind the Museo stands the church of S. Giovanni 
Decollato, called S. Zan Degola, and beyond it, on the Rio di 
S. Giovanni Decollato, the Church of S. Giacomo dell' Orio, 
which was probably founded in the tenth century and rebuilt 
by Sansovino in the sixteenth. It has been restored again in 
our time, but remains a curious and interesting building. It 
contains nothing of very great interest — a picture of S. Sebas- 
tian, S. Roch, and S. Lorenzo by Bonconsiglio, a picture by 
Francesco Bassano of S. John Preaching, and a spoilt and late 
work by Lotto, a Madonna and saints. From S. Giacomo 
deir Orio we proceed to iS. Maria Mater Domini, founded in 
the tenth century and rebuilt in 15 10, ^probably by Jacopo 
Sansovino. It contains three interesting pictures, besides a 
Byzantine relief of the Madonna. Over the second altar to the 
right is the Martyrdom of S. Cristina, painted in 1520 by 
Catena, a rather Giorgionesque work, in which we see in a 
bright landscape S. Cristina, about to be drowned, the mill- 
stone about her neck, borne up by angels, while Christ Himself 
appears to comfort her. The whole work is charming, though 
not apparently in very good condition. In the right transept 
is a very fine work by Tintoretto, the Finding of the Cross, 
and opposite a Last Supper by Bonifazio the second of that 
name. 

From S. Maria it is but a step to S. Cassiano, which also 
was founded in the tenth century, where an oratory then stood 



SESTIERI DI S. CROCE AND S. POLO 129 

dedicated to S. Cecilia. The Campanile is still a work of the 
thirteenth century, but the church is now of the seventeenth. 
Here, too, are three fine pictures : a S. John Baptist with four 
saints in a lovely landscape by Rocco Marconi, the pupil of 
Giovanni Bellini and the follower of Palma Vecchio, to whom, 
in fact, this work was long ascribed; a somewhat affected Visi- 
tation by Leandro Bassano, and in the choir a magnificent 
picture of the Crucifixion by Tintoretto. The decorative 
quality of this work is very striking ; the background of spears 
may well have given Velasquez a hint for his Breda. 

We now make our way from S. Cassiano into the Rialto, 
past the fish and vegetable markets. Just off the latter stands 
the Church of S. Giovanni Elemosinario, usually called 
S. Giovanni in Rialto. This church figures early in the 
history of Venice, but the building we see dates only from the 
sixteenth century. Its great treasure is the picture of S. John 
by Titian, which he painted for the High Altar of this church 
with an inscription dated 1533. Dr. Gronau so well describes 
this work that I cannot hope to better his words. He says : 
** The figure of S. John is placed high in the canvas, raised by 
several steps and towers to an enormous height, against a back- 
ground of sky covered by fine clouds. The Bishop, with a boy at 
his side bearing a cross, kept entirely in shadow, is interrupted 
while reading the Bible by a cripple, who has crept up to 
him, covered with rags and begging for alms. Titian has 
taken the moment when the old man is turning to hand the 
beggar his gift. The gentle bending attitude of the Bishop 
and the hopeful upward gaze of the beggar seem to unite the 
two figures more than the contrast of their outward appear- 
ance divides them. With remarkable artistic audacity Titian 
has brought the broad white surface of the Bishop's robe into 
the centre of the picture, treated with great freedom in play of 
light and shade, and has surrounded it by a brownish red in 
the under-robe and collar. The few colours employed are 
blended in splendid harmony with the deep blue of the sky, 
and so much grandeur is given to the picture by composition 
in colour and outline that it never fails to make a strong 

K 



130 VENICE AND YENETIA 

impression, hanging as it does over the High Altar of a 
fairly large church." 

Here, too, is a picture of Doge Giovanni giving alms by 
Rocco Vecelli, and a very fine Pordenone, an altarpiece of 
St. Sebastian, S. Roch, and S. Catherine. 

So we pass on through the markets to S. Giacomo di 
Rialto in the market-placCj probably the oldest church in 
Venice, for it was founded in 421, though some writers have 
it that S. Pantaeone is older. What we see in S. Giacomo now, 
however, is alas ! a restoration of the seventeenth century. 
Close by the church is a curious statue of a hunchback, 
II Gobbo. This statue, the work of Pietro da Salo in the six- 
teenth century, supports a pillar from which the laws of the 
Republic were proclaimed. In the great days of Venice all 
this district of the Rialto was the centre of her merchandize. 
Traders and merchants from all over Italy, from Turkey 
and the East, from Spain and the West thronged these piazzas 
and streets. The market-place is still a sufficiently busy and 
picturesque spectacle, but it makes a sorry comparison 
doubtless with all the busy life that here had its centre in 
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 

From S. Giacomo and the Ponte di Rialto we return to j 
S. Giovanni Elemosinario by the Ruga S. Giovanni, which ' 
we follow into the Campo di S. Aponal. The church here 
of that name was first built in 1034 and restored in the 
fifteenth century. In the nineteenth century it was closed 
and actually sold by auction. It was bought by certain 
of the faithful, who reopened it for the honour of God. 
Over the door is a fifteenth-century group of the Venetian 
general, Vittorio Capello, kneeling before S. Elena, by 
Antonio Rizzi. This group does not belong to this church of 
S. Aponal, but to the old Church of S. Elena, now destroyed. 

From the Campo di S. Aponal we proceed straight on 
across two canals to the church and Campo di S. Polo. The 
Campo, in which are several fine palaces — Palazzo Corner 
Mocenigo, Palazzo Soranzo, of the fourteenth century — is one 
of the larger Campi of Venice, and was of old the scene of 



SESTIERI DI S. OROCE AND S. POLO 131 

numerous bullfights and tournaments. In July, 1450, a 
Friar, in imitation, one may suppose, of S. Bernardino, was 
wont to preach here, and here he lighted a bonfire of false 
hair, sensuous pictures, books, rich clothes, and I know not 
what else, which he had persuaded half Venice to destroy. 
The Campo was, however, the scene of a more tragic affair 
than that ; for it was here that Lorenzino de' Medici, the 
murderer of Duke Alessandro de' Medici, was himself 
assassinated by the hired bravos Cecco Bibboni and Bebo 
da Volterra. Bibboni gives a very vivid account of the 
affair, which Symonds translates in his '' History of the 
Renaissance." It seems that the two bravos had watched 
Lorenzino go into the church from a cobbler's shop in 
the Campo, and they set upon him as he came out of 
the south door. " I saw him issue from the church," 
says Bibboni, " and take the main street ; then came 
(his uncle) Alessandro Soderini, and I walked last of all ; and 
when we reached the point we had determined on I jumped in 
front of Alessandro with the poniard in my hand, crying, 
' Hold hard Alessandro, and get along with you in God's name, 
for we are not here for you ! ' He then threw himself around 
my waist and grasped my arms and kept on calling out. 
Seeing how wrong I had been to try to spare his life, I 
wrenched myself as well as I could from his grip, and with my 
lifted poniard struck him, as God willed, above the eyebrow, 
and a little blood trickled from the wound. He in high fury 
gave me such a thrust that I fell backward, and the ground 
besides was slippery from its having rained a little. Then 
Alessandro drew his sword, which he carried in its scabbard, and 
thrust at me in front and struck me on the corselet, which for 
my good fortune was of double mail. Before I could get 
ready I received three passes, which had I worn a doublet 
instead of that mailed corselet would certainly have run me 
through. At the fourth pass I had regained my strength and 
spirit, and closed with him and stabbed him four times in the 
head, and being so close he could not use his sword, but tried 
to parry with his hand and hilt. I, as God willed, struck 



132 VENICE AND VENETIA 

him at the wrist, below the sleeve of mail, and cut his hand 
clean off, and gave him then one last stroke on his head. 
Thereupon he begged me for God's sake to spare his life, and 
I, in trouble about Bebo, left him in the arms of a Venetian 
nobleman, who held him back from jumping in the canal. . . . 
When I turned I found Lorenzino on his knees. He raised 
himself, and I, in anger, gave him a great cut across the head, 
which split it in two pieces and laid him at my feet, and he 
never rose again." That murder, like so many political 
assassinations of that time, took place outside a church, and 
was excused by the immorality of a time which regarded the 
act of Brutus with reverence and appealed to it on most 
occasions. 

The Church of S. Polo, or S. Paolo, was founded in the ninth 
century, but the present building is of the beginning of the 
nineteenth. It possesses nothing of much interest — a relief of 
the twelfth century in the apse, of the Madonna and Child 
between S. Peter and S. Paul with two angels : almost nothing 
else. The Campanile, however, belongs to the fourteenth 
century and is beautiful. 

From the Campo di S. Polo it is but a short walk across 
two canals to the great Franciscan church of Venice, 
S. Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. The Frari balances SS. Giovanni 
e Paolo, the great Dominican church on the other side of 
Venice, to the north of the Grand Canal. The Friars Minor 
settled in Venice as early as 1227. They came, of course, as 
beggars, but by 1250 they had so far approved themselves to the 
Venetians that they were able to begin building the vast church 
and convent we see, which was founded on the site of an old 
abbey given them by the Benedictines, and was finished less than 
a century later, in 1338. The convent is now the Archivio of 
the city, and I suppose one of the finest in Italy. As for the 
vast church, it is from an architectural point of view one of the 
most interesting in the city. Its beauty lies chiefly in its 
apse, which is a great feature in the church both from within 
and without. These great bare brick churches of Northern 
Italy have, I think, much to recommend them if only in their 



SESTIERI DI S. CROCE AND S. POLO 133 

restfulness after the often glaring marbles of the Tuscan 
buildings. But, like the latter, one must not compare them 
with our northern work, for the intention of their builders was 
very different from ours, and both were to a larger extent than 
we recognize at the mercy of their material. No one will care to 
give as much attention to the mere building of any church in 
Italy, I think, nor do they demand it, as he will gladly give to 
Westminster Abbey or Lincoln or Wells. Yet for all that the 
Italian churches have their own beauty of space and hght, 
which ours — as we see them now at any rate — too often seem 
to need. 

In the Frari, as far as the exterior is concerned, the west front 
has a fine doorway, surmounted by figures of the Risen Christ, 
the Madonna and Child and S- Francis. To the south stands 
the beautiful fourteenth-century Campanile of Massegne, and 
here, too, is a fine Venetian doorway, by which one usually 
enters the church. Here is a Madonna and Child and a 
figure of S. Francis. But when all is said the apse remains the 
finest feature in any view of the building from outside. Within 
in its vastness the church reminds us again of SS. Giovanni 
e Paolo. It has one feature rare in Italy, but common in 
Spain, and to be found in England, in the Abbey, for instance. 
I mean the choir is set west of the transept, so that it fills a 
good part of the nave. This is not easily seen at present, and 
indeed the whole church in its present state is scarce worth a 
visit, for it is terribly in the hands of the restorers. Most of 
the pictures have been removed, and have found a temporary 
resting-place in S. Toma. Our examination, then, must be 
less thorough than it would otherwise be. One enters by the 
door in the north aisle, and walking down the length of the 
church begins one's visit with a tour of the south or right 
aisle. Such is the usual method, and it is a good one. 

The holy-water basin here, with its statue of Chastity — or 
Charity, is it ? — with a lamb, is by Campagna, a work of the 
end of the sixteenth century. Close by is a vast and hideous 
monument erected in the first part of the nineteenth century 
by Ferdinand I to Titian. Beyond the second altar, with its 



134 VENICE AND VENETIA 

picture of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin by Salviati, is 
a baroque monument to Almerico d' Este, a general of the 
Republic ; this is of the seventeenth century. Over the third 
altar is a statue of S. Jerome, which is said to be a likeness 
of Titian just before his death. It is the work of Alessandro 
Vittoria. 

We now pass on into the right transept. Here is the fine 
early Renaissance tomb of Jacopo Marcello, a fifteenth-cen- 
tury work by the Lombardi. Beyond it is a work with which 
it perfectly harmonizes, a triptych by Bartolommeo Vivarini 
of the Madonna and Child with S. Andrew, S. Nicholas, 
S. Peter, and S. Paul, with a Pieta above between adoring angels 
carved in wood and gilded. This, like most of the other 
pictures, can now be seen in S. Toma. To the right, near the 
sacristy door, is the Gothic monument and tomb of Beato Fra 
Pacifico, the finisher, and in some ways the founder almost, of 
this church. It is a Florentine work of the fifteenth century. 
In the lunette is a Baptism of Christ, and beneath Faith, 
Hope, and Charity, with the Resurrection and Christ in 
Hades ; here also is a relief of the Madonna and Child, and at 
the sides above an Annunciation, painted. This beautiful 
tomb of Gothic work passing into Renaissance is unique in 
Venice. 

Above the sacristy door is the tomb of Benedetto Pesaro, 
the Venetian admiral, a sixteenth-century work by Lorenzo 
Bregno. The figure of Mars to the right is the work of Baccio 
da Montelupo, a Florentine. Close to the door on the left is 
a wooden equestrian statue of Prince Paolo SaveUi, a Roman 
noble, a work full of life, already prophesying the full 
Renaissance. 

Within the sacristy is a large reliquary of the seventeenth 
century in marble with reliefs of the Passion. Behind a 
curtain here stands a fine Renaissance ciborium with a relief 
of the Pieta and two saints — S. John Baptist and S. Francis. 
Here, too, stood one of the great treasures of the church, an 
altarpiece by Giovanni Bellini, painted in 1488, one of the 
oveliest of his works. It still carries its original Renaissance 



SESTIERI DI S. CROCE AND S. POLO 135 

frame. In the midst is the Blessed Virgin, enthroned, with her 
little Son standing on her knee. At her feet are two music- 
making angels of pure deHght, while in the side panels are 
four splendid saints on guard — S. Peter, S. Nicholas, S. Paul, 
and S. Benedict. Nothing that was ever in the church can 
have been lovelier than this quiet altarpiece. 

Returning to the church, we enter the apse. There are six 
chapels here. In the second are two fine tombs of the four- 
teenth century, that on the right being the monument of 
Duccio degli Alberti, that on the left of an unknown 
knight. These are splendid works of art. In the sanc- 
tuary itself, over the High Altar, Titian's Assunta, now in the 
Accademia, once stood. I suppose there is no one who sees 
it in its present place who does not regret that it was removed 
from this altar for which Titian painted it. Here are the 
Gothic tomb of Doge Francesco Foscari on the right and the 
early Renaissance tomb of Doge Niccolo Tron on the left. 
They are neither of them very satisfying or masterly works. 
In the first chapel, to the left of the High Altar, is a Madonna 
with S. Francis, S. Anthony of Padua, S. Louis of Toulouse, 
and other Franciscan saints by Pordenone. In the second 
chapel, the chapel of S. Theodore, lies the deposed patron of 
the Republic. The altarpiece is of carved and gilded wood, 
possibly by the Lombardi, but with a fine S. John Baptist by 
Donatello, and on the left is the monument — one cannot say 
the tomb — of Melchior Trevisano, a general of the Republic 
who died in 1500. In the third chapel is a fine altarpiece 
of S. Ambrose, for the chapel was that of the Milanesi in 
Venice, with S. George and S. Theodore for Venice, 
S. Gregory, S. Augustine, and S. Jerome, S. Sebastian, and 
others, with music-making angels by Alvise Vivarini and 
Marco Basaiti. Above is a Coronaiion of the Virgin by 
some later hand. 

The left transept is full of the glory of Ba:toL>mmeo 
Vivarini's fine triptych of S. Mark enthroned with S. John 
Baptist, S. Jerome, S. Peter, and S. Paul. Thence we pass 
into the Baptistery with its marble altar and Madonna, and 



136 VENICE AND VENETIA 

four saints of the school of Massegne, and its font and statue 
of S. John Baptist by Sansovino. 

The left aisle is almost entirely given over to the tombs of 
the Pesaro family, which was the greatest patron and bene- 
factor of the Franciscan Order in Venice. Not one of these 
tombs is of any great beauty or interest, though none is so 
meaningless, vulgar, and ostentatious as the huge pyramid that 
covers poor Canova. The great and beautiful thing which 
recalls us to this aisle of the Frari again and again is Titian's 
famous Madonna del Pesaro. 

It was in April, 15 19, that Jacopo Pesaro, Bishop of 
Paphos, for whom Titian had already painted the votive 
picture now in the Antwerp Gallery, ordered this great 
altarpiece for the Church of the Frari, where so many of 
his family lay. From then to May, 1526, Titian received 
instalments of his price, and on 8 December of that year 
a solemn ceremony was performed as the picture was placed 
over the altar the Pesari had erected. The picture then 
unveiled was one of the greatest the young Titian was to 
paint. Under a vast and beautiful Renaissance arch, through 
which we see a great sky full of snow-white clouds, between 
two mighty pillars, the Madonna sits enthroned, her little Son 
standing on her knee laughing with and blessing S. Francis, 
behind whom is S. Anthony. Bending a little to her right, 
Madonna holds her Child with both hands gently, firmly, 
and receives the homage of Bishop Jacopo, who is intro- 
duced by S. Peter, behind whom a bearded warrior, leading a 
Turk and a Moor in chains, uprears the standard of the 
Borgia. On the right of the picture beneath S. Francis kneel 
the family of the Bishop, three old men, perhaps his brothers, 
a youth, and a fair-haired child who gazes sweetly out of the 
canvas, while above one of those great white clouds has 
sailed into the great portico across the height of the pillars, 
and upon it, like children on a toy ship, are two winged 
angiolini bearing the cross. I suppose there is no other 
work of Titian in Venice which is so consummate a work of 
art or so wonderfully original a composition as this. Its 




1? < 

6 H 



SESTIERI DI S. CROCE AND S. POLO 137 

humanity and quietness, the beauty of its colour too, its 
inexhaustible perfection, are the chief reasons why one 
continually returns to the Frari. 

A little way to the left out of the Campo dei Frari stands 
the Church of S. Toma, which was founded very long ago, but 
is as we see it a work of the eighteenth century. The whole 
place is full of relics, there being in all more than ten 
thousand, I believe. Here now are temporarily conserved the 
pictures from the Frari. Returning to that great church, we 
find just behind it the Church of S. Rocco, with the Scuola 
beside it. As for S. Rocco itself, it is the one church in 
Venice that is very difficult to see, for it closes early, and I 
have never yet been able to find the sacristan. This, like 
S. Giobbe, is a plague church, S. Sebastiano and S. Maria 
della Salute being the others of the four Venice can boast. 
It was built in 1489 (but rebuilt again in the eighteenth 
century, and the fagade is even later) to receive the body of 
S. Roch, which some Venetians had stolen from the city of 
Montpellier because he was, and is, for what I know, a great 
champion against the plague. The Scuola, which was already 
in existence, at once took the name of the Saint, and agreed 
to pay for the church, and when they had seen to that they 
further decided to employ Tintoretto to decorate their guild 
house, which he did during eighteen years, so that after the 
Ducal Palace, I suppose you may see more of Tintoretto's work 
in this scuola than anywhere else in the world. It is usual, 
owing to the growing and most inhospitable custom of the 
Italian authorities of making you take a ticket even to enter a 
church, to visit the Scuola first before the church, and since 
this is the custom, let us abide by it. The cost is a franc. 

This great hall of the Guild of S. Roch was built in 
1491, and rebuilt on a far greater scale in 1516-1549. 
It consists of two great halls, one above the other, some 
smaller rooms, and a noble staircase. Practically all these 
are full of Tintoretto's work — work which here especially 
won the enthusiastic and beautiful praise of Ruskin, in 
whose prose it will surely live for ever. It might seem 



138 VENICE AND YENETIA 

doubtful if they will always endure in themselves or in the 
hearts of men. No one, I suppose, who has ever read those 
overwhelming pages in "The Stones of Venice" has left the 
Scuola di S. Rocco without a feeling of woeful disappoint- 
ment. To begin with, one comes there after seeing the 
Palace of the Doges, after seeing the Bacchus and Ariadne, 
therefore, and all the glory of the Antecollegio. There- 
fore one comes, remembering Ruskin's praise, expecting a 
similar, if not a greater glory. Instead, one passes before 
a vast number of great canvases, each one of which is as 
gloomy as night, in which one can scarce believe the sun 
ever shone, and these works come to seem at last as full of 
disappointment as the Paradiso of the Hall of the Great 
Council. Yet no one, I am sure, has ever given himself to 
these great, gloomy canvases without feeling their strength and 
passion, their sure and adventurous draughtsmanship, their 
marvellous composition, their wonderful technical strength, 
yes, and their sincerity. But this is not enough ; they may 
overwhelm us, and indeed they do ; they may draw from us 
all our praise, as they most surely will ; but when all has been 
said that can ever be said, they leave us cold, they do not 
touch our hearts, they are without mystery and beauty. What, 
after all, do they say to us, these pictures of the life of Christ, 
of Our Lady, and of S. Rocco — what do they mean to us ? 
and seeing we are not painters, what joy, what pleasure, what 
delight, do they bring suddenly, silently into our hearts? 
They tell us of the tremendous fight Tintoretto had with 
himself; they tell us of his vast ambition to become a painter; 
they tell us of his tireless energy and effort to express himself, 
and of his almost unbearable success. They have really 
nothing to do with Him who was born so long ago : 

"With a brightness in His bosom that illumines you and me." 

We are attracted rather by the wonderful power of that scene 
of cottage life, a true genre picture, realistic and a little 
brutal, in which a woman with great red arms just out of the 
washing-tub masquerades as Madonna, . . . But what need 



SESTIERI DI S. CROCE AND S. POLO 139 

to go over them all ? The titles are in every guide-book, only 
they do not accord with what we see. 

Yet from this denunciation — if denunciation it be — I would 
wish to withdraw at least the Crucifixion, that vast and terrible 
picture which hangs in the Sala dell' Albergo. I can say 
nothing about it ; it speaks after all for itself, and it is some- 
thing outside art and outside criticism. It has every quality 
I hate in a picture ; it is dramatic, full of unruly and over- 
emphasized gesture ; everything is in confusion, and the whole 
effect is emphasized and re-emphasized by the chiaroscuro. 
Yet here at least I bow my head. Let it be what it may be 
as a picture, this is the Death of the Son of God. I shall 
never forget that group at the foot of the cross, with its 
strange, bowed ghostly figure, nor that upUfted victim forgotten 
by God. 

I would say, too, if it be not the merest impertinence, that 
I would except from what I have previously said the Chris 
before Pilate, also in this room, which seems to me to have 
much nobiUty. And of course I except from all I have said 
with regard to Tintoretto's works the beautiful Annunciation 
of Titian on the side of the staircase over the first landing 
It is of the year 1545 or thereabout, according to Dr. Gronau 
and was bequeathed to the Scuola by a lawyer named Aurelio 
Cortona in 1555. 

There is much work by Tintoretto in the Church of 
S. Rocco, as well as a Betrayal of our Lord, by Titian, 
which is popularly thought to be miraculous. 



IX 

SESTIERE DI DORSODURO 

S. PANTALEONE — CAMPO DI S. MARGHERITA — THE CARMINE — 
SCUOLA DEL CARMINE — S. SEBASTIANO — S. TROVASO — 

I GESUATI — THE ZATTERE — S. MARIA DELLA SALUTE 

SEMINARIO PATRIARCHALE 

FROM the church and Scuola di S. Rocco we pass across 
the Rio della Frescada into the Sestiere di Dorsoduro 
which roughly comprises that part of Venice which Ues 
between the Fondamenta delle Zattere on the Canal della 
Giudecca and the Grand Canal. Going this way, we first 
come upon the Church of S. Pantaleone in its Campo. This 
Campo was of old used as a fish-market, and it still remains 
the threshold of that part of Venice which is, or seems to be, 
entirely devoted to the sea. The church was of very early 
foundation, but was rebuilt in the eleventh and again, as we 
now see it, in the end of the seventeenth century. In the 
second chapel on the right is a mediocre work by Paolo 
Veronese of S. Pantaleone healing a boy, while to the left of 
the High Altar is a fine early triptych by Giovanni and Antonio 
da Murano of the Coronation of the Virgin. 

Crossing the bridge at the end of the Campo over the Rio Ca 
Foscari, we enter the most democratic of all the piazzas of 
Venice, and, after the Piazza di S. Marco, the largest — the 
Campo di S. Margherita. The church which gave this Campo 
its name was first built in S;^6, but in 1810 it was closed, and 
in 1882 it passed into the hands of the Protestants. There 

is no more picturesque square in Venice than this on a 

140 



SESTIERE DI DORSODURO 141 

Saturday evening, when it is quite filled with people of the 
poorer classes. Its principal interest for us, however, apart 
from the beauty and antiquity of several of its palaces, is the 
church at the far end of it, the Carmine. It was begun in 
1298 and finished in 1348, but restored in the sixteenth 
century, and it holds several pictures of beauty and interest. 
Over the second altar on the right, for instance, is an Adoration 
of the Shepherds by Cima da Conegliano, one of the finest 
things in Venice. In an exquisite landscape, under a steep 
rock overhung with trees, at dawn Christ is born, and 
S. Joseph has brought in the shepherds to worship Him. 
Around stand various saints who are to be among His 
champions — S. Helena, S. Catherine, and Tobias, with 
the archangel Raphael. Far away many a little town is still 
asleep, unmindful of the glad tidings. Over the fourth altar 
is an early work by Tintoretto, the Circumcision ; while in the 
left aisle, over the second altar there. Lotto has painted an 
altarpiece, dated 1529, of S. Niccolb with three angels, and 
S. John Baptist and S. Lucy. Between the first and second 
altars here is a Deposition, a magnificent relief in bronze by 
Andrea Verrocchio the Florentine. Before leaving, one 
should visit the cloisters. 

Close by the church is the Scuola del Carmine, the house 
of a guild founded in 1529. Here one may see Tiepolo in all 
his lightness and beauty and grace, as perhaps nowhere else 
in Venice, for he painted the ceiling with five panels, with 
the Madonna and her little Son in the midst. The whole is 
nearly as lovely as the master's work in the Palazzo Labia. 

From the Carmine we proceed towards the Zattere, to 
S. Sebastiano, a plague church like S. Giobbe and S. Rocco. 
This church was built in the sixteenth century and restored 
in 1867. It is almost entirely decorated by Paolo Veronese, 
who is here buried. S. Sebastian was of old the greatest of 
all the plague saints ; and though the present church dates 
only from the sixteenth century, one dedicated in his honour 
was very early founded in Venice. The church was a founda- 
tion of the Jeronymite Order, whose founder, S. Jerome, 



142 VENICE AND YENETIA 

figures in the decoration as well as S. Sebastian. Paolo 
Veronese was employed by this Order when he first came to 
Venice, and he painted his Supper in the House of Simon, 
now in the Brera, for the Refectory of this monastery. 

But Veronese was not the only painter the Order employed. 
Over the altar of the first chapel on the right we see a magni- | 
ficent painting of S. Nicholas by Titian. This picture bears 
the date 1563, and was painted for Niccolo Crasso, a Venetian 
lawyer, who had built this chapel. 

Over the second altar is a delightful Madonna and Child 
with S. Anthony of Padua and S. Catherine of Alexandria by 
Paolo Veronese. The S. Anthony is said to be a portrait of 
the prior of the monastery. Over the third altar is a sculp- 
tured altarpiece by Tommaso Lombardo, a sixteenth-century 
work, while over the fourth altar is a fine and moving 
Crucifixion by Veronese. Beyond the pulpit is a good 
Renaissance tomb by Sansovino. 

The choir and High Altar hold three fine works by Veronese. 
Over the altar is the Apotheosis of S. Sebastian, to whom the 
Madonna appears in Heaven, surrounded by S. Mark for 
Venice, S. Jerome for the Jeronymites, S. John Baptist, and 
S. Catherine of Alexandria. To the right is his martyrdom, 
and to the left one of the poorest works Veronese ever 
painted, the Martyrdom of SS. Marcus and Marcellinus, 
whom S. Sebastian, in the full armour of a Roman soldier, 
encourages. 

Veronese painted the organ shutters also with the Purifi- 
cation of the Blessed Virgin and the Pool of Bethesda, very 
appropriate subjects for this church, and carried out in a 
masterly fashion. In the sacristy is a ceiling picture of the 
Coronation of the Blessed Virgin, and in the second chapel 
of the left aisle a restored Baptism of Christ by the same 
master. As though this were not enough, Veronese has 
covered the whole church with magnificent ceiling pictures 
of the story of Esther. This great man is buried in the last 
chapel of the left aisle in a modest tomb, over which a mere 
bust stands. 



SESTIERE DI DORSODURO 143 

From S. Sebastiano we pass to Ognissanti. This is a 
Cistercian church with a convent founded by some nuns 
from Torcello in 1472. It was first built of wood, but in the 
late fifteenth century the present church was built. In 1807 
both convent and church were suppressed, but the Capuchin 
sisters from S. Giuseppe di Castello, which was suppressed at 
the same time, presently acquired the church, and made a 
girls' school of the convent. 

A little farther on is the Church of S. Trovaso, an early 
foundation rebuilt in 1028. The present church was begun 
in 1584. This church stands in the territory both of the 
Castellani and the Nicolotti, two very ancient factions into 
which Venice is still in some sort divided.^ In truth, the 
Castellani represented the democrats of Tesolo, the Nicolotti 
the aristocrats of Heraclea.^^ The whole of Venice is divided 
between them : the Castellan faction can claim the Castello, 
the district of S. Giovanni in Bragora, the district of S. 
Gregorio, and the islands ; the Nicolotti the district from SS. 
Giovanni e Paolo to the railway station and back to the 
Accademia. Here at S. Trovaso the two territories meet. 
For this cause S. Trovaso has two doors, one towards the 
Nicolotti and one towards the Castellani. Mr. Brown tells 
us that " if a Castellan baby is to be baptized, and the god- 
father chance to be a Nicolotto, he will not leave the church 
by the same door as his compare^ but each goes out by the 
door belonging to his faction. Matters were carried even 
further than this ; and the faction to which a foreigner should 
belong on arriving in Venice was determined for him by the 
colour of that quarter where he first left his boat. Most of 
those who now visit Venice are Castellani. . . ." 

The church contains three Tintorettos — a Last Supper, an 
Adoration of the Magi, and S. Joachim expelled from the 
Temple. 

From S. Trovaso it is but a step to the Gesuati; and that is a 

' Cf. Horatio Brown, " Life on the Lagoons " (Rivington, 1900) : "A 
Regatta and its Sequel," pp. 264 et seq. 
' Cf. supra, pp. 16 et seq. 



144 VENICE AND YENETIA 

good way which takes you along the Fondamenta delle Zattere. 
This long quay by the side of the Giudecca canal was built in 
15 19, and gets its name from the wood rafts izatte) which 
were moored along this shore. Across the water lies the 
island of the Giudecca with its great Palladian churches of 
the Zitelle, the Redentore, and S. Eufemia. It is from the 
Redentore to the Zattere that the wooden bridge is built on 
the third Sunday in July for the procession in honour of the 
Precious Blood. 

As for the Gesuati, the sons of Blessed Giovanni Columbini 
of Siena, they were suppressed by Clement IX in 1688, and 
the present church and convent which bear their name were 
built by the Dominicans and dedicated to Madonna del 
Rosario in the eighteenth century. Tiepolo has painted the 
ceiling, therefore^, with the Institution of the festival of the 
Rosary and a Vision of Madonna and Apotheosis of S. 
Dominic. Over the first altar to the right, too, we find a 
delightful altarpiece by the same master of the Madonna 
and Child with three Dominican nuns. By the third altar 
to the left is a Crucifixion by Tintoretto. - 

From the Gesuati we follow along the Zattere past the Scuola 
dello S. Spirito, which was founded in the adjoining church in 
1492 and is now a tobacco store, to the church and convent 
dello Spirito Santo. The church was founded by Maria 
Caroldo, who was the first superior of the convent close 
by, which she also built. 

Here we leave the Zattere and proceed north towards the 
Grand Canal and S. Maria della Salute. 

In S. Maria della Salute we have the typical plague church 
of the city. It was built in gratitude to the Madonna of 
Health, who, so the Venetians believed, had freed them from 
the last and the greatest pestilence, that of 163 1, which endured 
for sixteen months and carried off some 140,000 persons. 
Venice was particularly open to the plague. The great 
commercial city of Central Europe, she was always in contact 
with the East and with the infection. More than once, 
notably in 1348, and in 1571 when Titian was carried off by 





THE GESUATI, VENICE 



SESTIERE DI DORSODURO 145 

the pestilence in his ninety-ninth year, she was hard put to it 
to carry on her government, so many died within her dominion. 
That attack in 1571, however, which had seen the building of 
the Redentore and the institution of a great festival and proces- 
sion that in some sort still endures, was less terrible in every 
way — in its duration as in the number of its victims — than 
that of 1 63 1. This last pestilence stopped suddenly in 
November, 1631, after a vow had been made by the Doge 
that the Republic would build a church to Madonna della 
Salute if she would deliver them. The Republic observed 
its promise. A splendid church was immediately planned, a 
public competition was arranged, and by its means Longhena, 
a Venetian, a follower of Palladio, was chosen as architect. 
Meanwhile a wooden and temporary oratory was built upon a 
piece of land which the Knights Templar had bestowed on 
the Republic. A bridge of boats was built across the Grand 
Canal, and on 28 November the Doge, the Senate, the 
nobles, and the people went in state and in procession from 
S. Marco to hear Mass. "The letter of a contemporary," says 
Mr. Horatio Brown, "tells us that the day was cloudlessly fine; 
and we see this long procession filing across the bridge, the 
priests in their coloured robes, the silver and gold candle- 
sticks, the flags of the various companies, the young nobles 
in their tight hose and slashed doublets, the elders each with a 
long white taper in his hand. . . ." That November proces- 
sion endures too, as well as that to the Redentore in July, to 
our own time, and remains one of the greatest, the most 
popular, and the most picturesque spectacles still to be seen 
in this city, which has become so sombre, a mute at its own 
funeral. 

And the church which Longhena built, in spite of its period, 
in spite of its wild ornament, seems more and more as we get 
to know it better to be one of the finest, most astonishing, 
and perhaps one of the loveliest buildings which remain in the 
Venice of to-day. 

It is a great circular, or, rather, octagonal, church under a 
vast great dome, flanked by a smaller dome over the sanctuary 



L 



146 VENICE AND YENETIA. 

chapel. It is set on a great platform at the top of a broad 
flight of steps at the very entrance of the Grand Canal. It 
reigns there like a queen, high above the gilded Fortuna of 
the Dogana^ and seems, I often think, better than any other 
building whatsoever to sum up the later city of which it is at 
once the crown and the symbol. It is easy to sneer at so 
light and so popular a thing ; but who can deny its immense 
success, not with the vulgar alone, but with us all ? We have 
seen and suffered Venice without the Campanile j but who 
could imagine her without the Salute? If that fell, Venice 
herself would seem to have suffered some irremediable change. 
It has stood there only since the seventeenth century, yet it 
seems as inherent a part of the city as S. Mark's. 

Within the church is a host of that sort of rubbish which 
accumulates about every shrine amid things as precious as 
they are lovely. But even this rubbish takes on a sort of life 
when we remember the reason of the church and what it 
stands for in the heart of Venice. As for the precious things, 
though they be few they are rare enough, yet not all are here 
by right. These Titians, for instance, come from the Spirito 
Santo, the island in the lagoon, for whose friars, as Vasari 
relates, the painter made them in 154 1; in the first we see the 
Descent of the Holy Spirit : yet it suffered so much, getting 
darker and darker, that Titian had to paint it afresh. Then 
behind the High Altar we see eight medallions by the same 
master made for the same church of the Spirito Santo, the 
Evangelists and the Fathers of the Church ; while in the 
sacristy are three ceiling pictures by the same master, made, 
too, for the Spirito Santo, of the Death of Abel, Abraham's 
Sacrifice, and the Death of Goliath. Here, too, is another 
Titian, the best in the church, but again belonging to the 
Santo Spirito, of S, Mark enthroned with four saints. 

Nor is the Tintoretto in the sacristy, a large and dark 
picture of the Marriage in Cana of Galilee, really at home 
here ; it comes from the Refectory of the Crociferi, where it 
was certainly better seen and probably more in place, for it is 
without any sense of religion, and better suited to a dining 



SESTIERE DI DORSODURO 147 

room than to a church, for all its Rembrandtesque beauty 
which, of course, Ruskin praises eloquently. 

This leaves us with little but rubbish ; yet there is a good 
Marco Basaiti in the sacristy, a San Sebastian, a fine plague 
picture, and a curious work by Girolamo daTreviso of S. Rocco, 
S . Sebastian, and S. Jerome, which are properly in place here. 

Close by S. Maria della Salute, on the left of the church, 
stands the beautiful church and abbey of S. Gregorio, which 
in its present form dates from 1392. This is one of the 
loveliest fragments of old Venice which remain to us. 

On the other side of the Salute church is the Seminario 
Patriarcale. It stands where of old the monastery of the SS. 
Trinita stood. This was destroyed when the Salute was built, 
and in 1670 a house was built on the site for the Order which 
had the new church in its charge. For a few years before 
1 63 1 the Seminary had occupied the old monastery of SS. 
Trinita, but in that year it was transferred to Murano. In 
1 81 7, however, it was restored to Venice, returning to the 
building we now see, a work of Longhena. This now contains 
a small picture-gallery— Galleria Manfredini — together with a 
collection of sculptures, the merest fragments. Only one 
picture here need detain us more than a moment. It is 
the retouched and spoilt but still lovely Apollo and Daphne 
of Giorgione, which for all its delicious landscape and jewel- 
like quality cannot compare with the Giovanelli picture. 

Beyond the Seminario stands the Dogana di Mare, the sea 
custom-house, which was a building of the fourteenth century, 
restored in 1525, but is now a work of Giuseppe Benoni made 
in 1675. The Dogana di Terra, a custom-house for goods 
arriving overland, is in the Rialto. 



X 

THE ACADEMY 

THE Venetian School of Painting which, with its great 
masters of the sixteenth century, occupies so famous a 
place in the history of Art, was not only very much later in 
its development than any other school in Italy, but was 
essentially different both in its condition and in its intention 
from any of them, and may be said to have sprung fully armed 
into existence in the middle of the fifteenth century really 
without forbears in Venice, and after a brief but very glorious 
existence of some two hundred years to have passed away, 
leaving, however, to such men as Canaletto, Guardi, andTiepolo 
a remembrance, a shadow of its glory which remains as a 
wonderful afterglow, if we may say so, upon their work. 

Unlike the schools of Florence, Siena, and Umbria, the 
Venetian school has little fundamentally to do with religion : 
it is the first, as it is the only, secular school of Italy, and its 
chief technical characteristic is neither the power and integrity 
of its drawing, nor its beauty and delight as decoration, but 
the splendour of its colour, its continual preoccupation with 
joy and with life. 

The school of Florence, the school of Siena early produced 
each a great master who not only decided the future of 
painting in both those cities, but in a very real sense summed 
up in his own achievement what that future was to be. The 
work of Masaccio, of Michelangelo even, is as implicit in the 
frescoes of Giotto as the work of Sassetta is in that of Duccio ; 

but there is nothing in the early Venetians that, even in the 

148 



THE ACADEMY 149 

smallest measure, prophesies the work of Giorgione, of Titian, 
of Tintoretto. Nor can we assert that Giorgione himself is such 
a prophecy, and that in the fifteen pictures which we possess 
from his hand all the work of Titian, of Tintoretto, and Paolo 
Veronese really lies hid. For each of these men is himself a 
prophecy which is only fulfilled in the work each accom- 
plished. Giorgione may, it is true, speak for the young Titian ; 
but who but Titian himself may speak for the later periods of 
his work? Who but Tintoretto prophesied of Tintoretto? And 
who but Veronese could have imagined the glory that passes 
under his name ? Moreover, if in Giorgione we find indeed 
the Giotto of the school, what are we to make of his so late 
appearance in 1478, two hundred years and more after the 
birth of Giotto and Duccio, and how are we properly to 
explain his forerunners, the Bellini and Carpaccio, for instance, 
who, if indeed he is their successor, would have been astonished 
at their progeny ? For the truth is that Giorgione, Titian, and 
Tintoretto are each an absolutely new impulse in painting. 
Fundamentally they owe nothing, accidentally even very little, 
to their predecessors; and if, as we have said, Titian and 
Tintoretto were able to find full expression because of the 
work of Giorgione, it is only in the way that Shakespeare and 
Milton may be said to owe something, though it might be 
difficult to assert precisely what it is, to Spenser ; what they 
owe to Chaucer, though doubtless they owe much, it might 
seem impossible to indicate with any clearness. We may say 
the same of Venetian painting, which in more ways than one 
resembles very closely the work of our poets of the sixteenth 
and seventeenth centuries. Chaucer's debt to Italy, to 
Boccaccio, is as great as the debt of the early Venetians to 
the Byzantine masters ; but the work of Shakespeare, the 
work of Milton, the work of Giorgione, Titian, and Tintoretto 
are absolutely new things in the world, the result of a new 
impulse and a new vision, individual and personal to the last 
degree, owing little to any school and making little of 
tradition. They are the great creators in Art, and it is to 
them that all later masters make their appeal, save Rembrandt 



150 VENICE AND VENETIA 

perhaps, Velasquez as well as Rubens and Vandyck and 
Reynolds. 

What, then, do we mean by " the Venetian school " ? If all 
that is greatest in the Venetian painters is in each case a new 
and individual effort, owing little to tradition, the Venetian 
school might seem to be little more than a term without real 
significance. Yet, in fact, the Venetian school existed for j 
more than two hundred years; only we find that here the 
term school means something different from what it does in 
the case of the Florentines, or the Sienese, or the Umbrians : 
something different, but not something less fundamental or 
less living. 

By the Florentine school we mean essentially that long line \ 
of painters who worked on the lines Giotto had laid down, £^ 
who extended them and secured them, but never departed <^ 
from them ; by the Sienese school we mean that line of -^ 
painters who worked with the same intention and with the 
same effect as Duccio had worked ; and it is significant 
that when we come to such men as Sodoma, Girolamo di 
Benvenuto, Pacchia, and Pacchiarotto we no longer speak of 
them, Sienese though they be, as of the Sienese school, but / 
confess at once that they have little or nothing to do with it. 
In Venice it is different. There is nothing essentially of 
Florence in Florentine painting, there is nothing absolutely 
of Siena in Sienese work ; but we have only to think of the 
work of the " Venetian school " to remember Venice. If, 
indeed, it is from Giotto that the school of Florence springs, if 
it is to Duccio that the Sienese painters owe the whole of their 
art, it is to Venice, and to Venice alone, that the Venetian / 
painters look — it is she who has always prophesied of them,'^ 
and without her they could never have existed at all. When / 
we speak of the Venetian school, then, we mean, in a very '' 
precise way, the school of Venice — the painters which Venice . =. 
produced or, at least, made essentially her own, all of whom 
were born within her dominion. This definition of what we 
mean by the Venetian school — the school which owes every- 
thing to Venice — alone unites such a master as Lorenzo 



THE ACADEMY 151 

Veneziano with Carpaccio and the Bellini, and truly connects 
them all with Giorgione, Titian^ Tintoretto, and Paolo Veronese. 
Nor is it in any sense far-fetched or even strained. For the 
commercial Republic of Venice was one of the strongest and 
one of the most vital of the States 'of the world during many 
hundreds of years. It was not merely the greatest political 
power in Italy, but for very many years the greatest commercial 
power in the world, and, as we have seen, it depended not 
upon any balance of power in Italy, or even in Europe, but 
upon both Europe and the East, to which it was the key. Its 
political decadence sprang at last not from any internal cause, 
as in Florence or Siena, but from an external misfortune which 
it was incapable of preventing — the Fall of Constantinople in 
1453. And since such were the conditions, the splendid con- 
ditions of its existence, it was capable of realizing a far more 
intense, a far richer and more energetic personality than 
any of the little Republics that, hovering between a despotism 
and a futile democracy, were able politically to distract Italy 
for so long, while in culture they achieved for us so much of 
what is most precious in our lives to-day. Their energies were 
divided, for their civilization and their culture united at no 
single point. In Venice, on the contrary, civilization and 
culture ^ went hand in hand, and thus when Venice expresses 
herself, whatever language she uses, we realize at once that we 
are face to face with a living personality at one with itself. It 
is to this personality we owe the Venetian School of Painting. 
Precisely what I mean will become evident if for a moment 
we glance at the Republics of Florence and Venice as per- 
sonalities. We shall then see at once that the great men of 
Florence were always greater than their city, whereas Venice 
was always greater than her greatest men. Florence was 
incapable of absorbing, often even of using, her greatest sons ; 
she sends Dante into exile, she cannot keep Leonardo, Michel- 
angelo she fails either to understand or to comprehend, 
Galileo she allows to be imprisoned. Venice, on the contrary, 

'^ By civilization I mean Industry, Economy, Politics. By culture I 
mean Philosophy, Religion, Ethics, and Art. 



152 VENICE AND VENETIA 

lets not one of her sons escape, she is so profoundly living 
that she absorbs their energies and they enrich her. Marco 
Polo she both understands and honours, he dies in her arms ; 
she absorbs the printers and paper-makers and becomes the 
printing press of Italy, even the poems of Lorenzo de' Medici 
are printed first at Venice. She alone of the Italian 
Republics is capable of producing great statesmen and 
politicians, but she absorbs them ; they are her servants 
and not her enemies. For centuries she faces the Church 
and keeps her liberty, hke a nation ; and though the League 
of Cambrai at last destroyed her, she was able to meet 
it, and that even though she had received her death-blow- 
long before when the treachery of Pio II overthrew Con- 
stantinople. What, then, we seem to see in Venice is a 
nation, the only nation in Italy, and this political and moral 
fact is decisive for her art, which is as national as the work of 
the English school of the eighteenth century. 

But the Venetian school of painting is peculiar among the 
schools of Italy in something else beside its nationalism. It 
is civic rather than religious. By this I mean that it was 
rather the servant of the city and the citizens, of the State, in 
fact, than of the Church, and thus it became the first secular 
school of painting in Italy. There is nothing in all Venice, 
no series of frescoes or pictures which one may put beside 
the work of Giotto and his followers in S. Croce, of Ghir- 
landajo in S. Maria Novella. The pictures of Carpaccio in 
in S. Giorgio degli Schiavoni were painted for the Dalmatians 
in the service of nationalism rather than in the service of 
religion. As for the mosaics of S. Mark's, they have nothing 
to do with the Venetian school of painting, are something, in 
fact, outside of it, and were made, after all, to decorate the 
chapel of the Doges. If we search for something to put 
beside the great fresco sequences of the Florentines, we shall 
find it, not in any church, but in the Doge's Palace, where at 
least three series of paintings have been destroyed and 
replaced by the splendid work wholly of national and civic 
significance which we see to-day. And it is the same through- 



THE ACADEMY 153 

out the city. Not the Church but the secular guilds, the 
Scuole commissioned and received series of paintings. It is 
not to the Franciscan Church of the Frari or the Dominican 
Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo that we go in search of such 
things, but to the Scuola di S. Rocco and the Scuola di 
S. Maria della Carita, now the Academy, and, above all, to 
the Palace of the Doges. Neither the Scuola di S. Maria 
della Carita nor the Scuola di S. Rocco were Regular or even 
ecclesiastical communities, they were lay guilds; and though 
the works they commissioned for the decoration of their guild 
houses are religious in subject, they are concerned rather with 
the guild and its intention than with religious teaching. Thus 
we see that the Venetian school of painting, wholly national 
in its inception, was altogether civic in its practice. The 
painters depended not upon the Church or the Religious 
Orders for their commissions, but upon the Government and 
the lay guilds of the people. So that in Venice we have the 
first great school of Italian painting which was in no way the 
servant of the Church. 

That this great school was, in fact, to be a national school 
does not become evident till it was firmly established in the 
fifteenth century by the Bellini. The earliest work that passes 
under the name of Venetian, and that was largely done in the 
service of the Church, was for the most part the work of 
foreigners. This becomes evident at once if we examine the 
pictures collected in the Academy in their chronological order. 
If Niccolb Semilicolo (i 351-1400) is a Venetian one would 
not be convinced of it by his Coronation of the Virgin (23) or 
by the smaller works in that collection from his hand. He 
might seem to have no connexion at all with the work of the 
Bellini. If in the splendid work of Lorenzo Veneziano (1357- 
1379) we seem to find something more national, especially in 
the beautiful ancona (20) of the Annunciation with saints and 
scenes from the Old Testament, which comes from the 
demolished Church of S. Antonio di Castello, he is but an 
isolated prophecy of the splendour that is to be, for in his 
work what we take to be Venetian might seem rather to be 



154 VENICE AND VENETIA 

Byzantine, and to owe more to Constantinople than to Venice. 
And if we think it strange that the Byzantine tradition should 
be still found in Venice on the eve of the fifteenth century, 
we must remember the geographical position of the city, and 
that nationalism, which was the secret of her being, had not 
yet been able to express itself. Yet in a very real sense the 
Byzantinism of Lorenzo is a blind, but nevertheless a certain, 
striving for that very thing. Of that we may be certain, for 
Giotto had long since been in Padua, and there his work 
remained. Yet Venice preferred what she had long ago made 
her own and still found in her own buildings and mosaics to 
Tuscan naturalism. 

Nevertheless one may be sure that even in regard to Venice 
Giotto did not paint wholly in vain. We find his influence in 
the work of Altichiero of Padua, just as we find the influence 
of two other schools, the Umbrian in the work of Gentile da 
Fabriano and the German in the work of Johannes Alemannus, 
whom we call Giovanni da Murano, and it is these masters, in 
fact, who faintly and very far off influence, as far as any 
foreigners were able to do, the first painters of the national 
Venetian school. 

Paduan work, and still better, work strongly influenced by 
the Paduans, is to be seen in the Academy ; but it is in the 
beautiful altarpiece (625) of Antonio Vivarini and Giovanni 
da Murano that we find perhaps the finest work of these half- 
Venetian, half- foreign masters. There we see the Madonna 
enthroned with her Divine Child. Her expression is cold, 
even insipid, and yet pensive withal. The enclosed garden in 
which she sits reminds us of many an old German picture, 
but the whole is in some subtle fashion a prophecy of some- 
thing warmer and more passionate than anything Germany 
will know how to produce, and the spell of Venice seems 
already to have fallen upon men who must have felt their 
fetters. 

But it is in the work of Gentile da Fabriano, an Umbrian, 
that it seems to me Venice was most fortunate in the influence 
from without. In all the schools of Italy she could have 



THE ACADEMY i55 

found no more congenial prince to awake her. The painter 
of the glorious Adoration of the Shepherds in the Florence 
Academy might seem to have been a Venetian almost without 
knowing it, and his work in the Doge's Palace, where he was 
employed to paint the Sala del Maggior ConsigUo, without 
doubt exercised the supreme influence upon the first master 
of the true Venetian school — I mean Jacopo Bellini — as well 
as upon such masters as Antonio da Negroponte and the later 
masters of the Murano school. 

Jacopo Bellini was active between 1430 and 1470 ; he was 
Gentile's pupil, and came directly under the influence of one 
of the great masters of Northern Italy, Vittore Pisano of 
Verona, whom we call Pisanello. Pisanello worked at Venice 
in conjunction with Gentile da Fabriano, and these two 
painters may be said to have been the real founders of the 
Venetian school. For it is in the work of their pupils, and 
especially in the work of Jacopo Bellini and his pupils, that 
we find that school to have been established. 

There remains in Venice, happily, more of the very rare 
work of Jacopo Bellini than anywhere else. In the Academy 
there is a Madonna and Child (582) which is rather dis- 
appointing, and in the Museo Civico (Sala IX, 42) a Cruci- 
fixion, while a doubtful S. Giovanni Crisogono on horseback 
remains in S. Trovaso. But if the Venetian character of 
Jacopo's work seems rather shadowy, we are assured of it at 
once in the great and plentiful work of his sons, Giovanni 
(1430-1516) and Gentile (1429-1507). 

A whole room is devoted to the work of Giovanni Bellini 
in the Academy, and his work is plentiful in the Museo Civico 
and in the churches of the city. No one in looking upon it 
could mistake it for anything but Venetian ; for though 
Giovanni was formed in Padua under the influence of Dona- 
tello, he was first his father's pupil, and it is probable that his 
greatest work was done for the Doge's Palace in his native 
city. What remains to us in the Academy is the six Madonna 
pictures and the five small allegories, and there is nothing in 
any one of them all that any but a master of the Venetian 



156 VENICE AND VENETIA 

school could have painted. The work of his brother Gentile, 
who was also influenced by the Paduans, is rarer, though not 
in Venice. In the Academy we have four pictures : the first 
the picture of Beato Lorenzo Giustiniani (570), painted in 
1465 ; the second the wonderfully lovely Corpus Christi Pro- 
cession in the Piazza (567), painted in 1496 ; the third the 
Miracle of the True Cross (508), painted in 1500; and the 
last the Healing by the True Cross (563), also a pageant 
picture. In such works as these we see how profoundly 
national the school was. 

It is these men and their pupils who make up the school of 
Venice. 

But here something must be said of a painter born, and as 
far as we know bred, in Southern Italy, who came to Venice 
in 1473, in the middle of the career of Giovanni Bellini. 
This painter was Antonello da Messina, and it was from him 
that, though we are unable to say how he acquired it, the 
Venetian painters learned to paint in oil. Only two of his 
works remain in Venice, an Ecce Homo in the Academy 
(589), and a Portrait of a Man in the Giovanelli Collection. 
In contact with the Vivarini and Bellini his style developed; 
and though it perhaps may be unjust to say that he received 
as much as he gave, seeing that what he gave was a new 
means and material in painting, he certainly became a much 
finer painter, especially a portrait painter, than without Venice 
it seems likely he would have been. As a colourist, too, and 
this he would owe as much to that unknown Flemish painter 
whom we suppose to have been his first master as from the 
Venetians, he has had few equals, but it is chiefly as the 
introducer of painting in oils that he is significant in the 
Venetian school. 

Among the most famous of his contemporaries, whom 
thus far at least were his disciples, are Vittore Carpaccio, 
who was working from 1478 to 1522, and was the pupil and 
follower of Gentile Bellini and Cima da Conegliano, who 
worked at the same time, and was the pupil of Alvise 
Vivarini and the disciple of Giovanni Bellini. The greater 



THE ACADEMY 157 

master of the two was Carpaccio, who in the many works 
by him that remain in Venice shows himself as an ideal 
painter of genre^ which, when all is said, remains the true 
foundation of the Venetian school. We have seen the 
delightful work of Carpaccio in S. Giorgio degli Schiavoni in 
S. Giorgio Maggiore and in S. Vitale, two pictures by him are 
also to be found in the Museo Civico, but his most charming 
and delightful works are here in the Academy, where the 
Sala di S. Ursula and part of the old church of the Carit^ 
is surrounded by a series of large pictures from his hand con- 
cerning the story of S. Ursula, the Breton princess whose hand 
was sought by the Lon of the King of England, and who 
perished, with eleven thousand virgins, under the swords of 
the Huns at Cologne. Nothing, I suppose, in all Venetian 
art is more characteristic of it at its simplest than the Dream of 
S. Ursula, where we see a quiet room full of the cool morning 
light and all the simple furniture a maid would need, and 
there in bed lies S. Ursula asleep, dreaming of her prince and 
her pilgrimage to Rome. It is as though in Carpaccio's hands 
the most fantastic and improbable story of the Dark Age 
had become true, true to life and full of meaning, a sort 
of ideal reality which we shall search for in vain, I think, out 
of Venice. Of other works by the same master some are 
altogether lacking in this quality. We find it in the HeaUng 
of a Madman by the Rialto Bridge (566), painted in 1455 ; in 
the Meeting of S. Joachim and S. Anna (90), painted in 15 15; 
and in the Circumcision (44) of 15 10. 

Cima, too, is well represented in Venice, for beside his 
works in the Carmine, in S. Giovanni in Bragora, in 
SS. Giovanni e Paolo, and in S. Maria delF Orto, which we 
have already examined, there are six of his works in the 
iVcademy : a Madonna and six saints (36), Tobias and the 
Angel with S. James and S. Nicholas (592), a Madonna and 
Child (597), a Madonna and Child with S. John and S. Paul 
(603), a Pieta (604), and a Christ with S. Thomas and 
S. Magnus (611). Less original, perhaps, than Carpaccio, 
Cima is nevertheless one of the greatest of Giovanni's 



158 VENICE AND YENETIA 

disciples. In him we see the other great characteristic of 
the Venetian school, for he is full of enthusiasm for land- 
scape, the genre painting of out-of-doors, and in this he rivals 
his master. Over and over again he paints the hills of his 
birthplace, Conegliano, as though he loved them, and indeed 
with him landscape painting became one of the secure and 
great achievements of the Venetian school. 

We have said that he was the pupil of Luigi or Alvise 
Vivarini. This painter (1461-1503) was of the Murano 
school, but he came under the influence of Giovanni Bellini, 
and thus entered the true Venetian school of the fifteenth 
century. Many works by him remain up and down Venice, 
while in the Academy there are four pictures of saints — - 
S. Matthew (619), S. John (618), S. Sebastian, S. Anthony, 
S. John Baptist, and S. Laurence (621), an early work, 
S. Clare (593), a Head of Christ (87), a later work, and a 
Madonna and Child with six saints (607) of 1480. 

Thus we see the Venetian school of the fifteenth century 
with a common origin in the Bellini, and especially in 
Giovanni Bellini. For we have by no means named all the 
brilliant painters who passed through Giovanni's hands. We 
have yet to speak of Catena, a native of Treviso, whose first 
master was a painter of that city, Girolamo da Treviso by 
name. Catena, however, owes almost everything to Giovanni 
Bellini, in whose school he continued his education, coming 
later under the influence of Carpaccio, and later still under 
that of Giorgione. 

Catena, who was active certainly from 1495-1531, but the 
date of whose birth is uncertain, was, in fact, one of the best 
pupils Giovanni Bellini ever had. His work is not plentiful 
in Venice, but what there is is chiefly early work; that, for 
instance, in the Palazzo Ducale, a Madonna with two saints 
and the Doge Loredan, a Madonna with S. John Baptist 
and another saint in Palazzo Giovanelli, a S. Trinita in 
S. Simeone, and a Madonna and Child in S. Trovaso. His 
work finds no place in the Academy. Vasari praises him for 
his portraits, but not one of these remains in Venice. 



THE ACADEMY 159 

Another painter born at Treviso, Bissolo (i 464-1 528), was 
also a pupil of Giovanni Bellini, whom, in fact, he assisted in 
his work. He has not the brilliance of Catena, and is too 
often a disappointing pupil of his master. His work in 
Venice is fairly plentiful, and works by him exist in S. 
Giovanni in Bragora, in S. Maria Mater Domini in the 
Redentore, and in the Museo Civico, where is a Madonna and 
Child with S. Peter Martyr. The Academy possesses four 
of his paintings : a Marriage of S. Catherine (79), a Pieta (88), 
a Presentation in the Temple (93), and a Madonna with S. 
James and Job. 

We find another follower of Bellini in Marco Basaiti, who 
was active from 147 0-1527. He was probably a native of 
Friuli, and had passed through the hands of Alvise Vivarini. 
His work is somewhat hard and dry, yet often severe and full 
of dignity, but he cannot claim to be among the greater pupils 
of his great master. His work in the Academy consists of five 
pictures : a Calling of the Sons of Zebedee (39) and a Christ 
in the Garden (68), both painted in 15 10, a S. James and S. 
Antony (68), a Pieta (108), S. George and the Dragon (102), 
painted in 1520, in which we discern Carpaccio's influence, 
and a S. Jerome (39). 

Such were the best masters of the fifteenth century in 
Venice ; and while all of them may be said to proceed from 
the studio of the Bellini, there is not one of them who does 
not show the profound influence of Venice herself. This 
influence, which makes the Venetian the one great national 
school of painting in Italy, comes to its own, and is empha- 
sized in the great painters of the sixteenth century, the true 
glory of Venice. They too proceed from the school of 
Giovanni Bellini, and thus complete the direct descent of 
what is, when all is said, the greatest school of painting 
that has ever existed in the world. 

And these painters of the sixteenth century in Venice 
express the fundamental origins of the school in all their 
strength. That school, as has been said, was never religious 
but rather civic in its origin, and it is in these heirs of the 



i6o VENICE AND YENETIA 

Bellini, the great pageant painters, that we realize that fact to 
the fullest extent. For with Giorgione (1478-15 lo), the pupil 
of Giovanni Bellini, who came under the influence of 
Carpaccio, we have a new creation in Art ; he is the first 
painter of the true " easel picture," the picture which is neither 
painted for a church nor to adorn a great public hall, but to 
hang on the wall of a room in a private house for the delight 
of the owner. For Giorgione the individual exists, and it is 
for him, for the most part, he works, and thus stands on the 
threshold of the modern world. Born in Castelfranco, a 
walled town of the Veneto not far from Bassano, not far 
from Treviso, Giorgione lived but thirty-two years, dying of 
plague, as it is said, in 15 10. In these short thirty-two years, 
however, he found time to re-create Venetian painting, to re- 
turn it to its origins, and to make the career of his great fellow- 
pupil, Titian, whom he may be said to have formed, possible. 
And with the art of Titian all that was best, most fundamental, 
and implicit in Venetian painting came to flower. He sums 
up Venice, and is, in fact, to painting what Shakespeare is to 
literature, the greatest master of the modern world. 

Of Giorgione's work, in its subtle and serene rhythm, in its 
perfect reconciliation of matter and form, musical, aspiring as 
Pater has so well said, "towards the condition of music," 
one supreme example remains in Venice — the Gipsy and the 
Soldier of the Palazzo Giovanelli. If the Apollo and Daphne 
of the Seminario be less fine, we must not fail to note what 
ravages time and the spoiler have worked upon it ; while the 
Christ bearing the Cross at S. Rocco remains a lovely, if less 
characteristic, picture. In the Academy, unhappily, there is 
but a late work by this rare and delightful master, a picture of 
a storm stilled by S. Mark (516), which is his in part only, 
and which was finished by Paris Bordone. But in the 
Giovanelli and the Seminario pictures we have in Venice 
perfect examples of those " easel pictures " of which he was the 
creator — pictures which are concerned with a delightful out-of- 
doors and foresee so much of what is most deUghtful in true 
landscape painting, which are yet genre pictures of the best and 



ACADEMY i6i 

most ideal kind, and which were painted for the delight of 
private persons, to bring light into a house and to make 
it home. 

We owe to Giorgione in great part, too, the enormous vogue 
of the portrait that with him began to take the world by storm. 
His early Portrait of a Man, in Berlin, his Portrait of Antonio 
Brocardo, in Buda Pesth, his Knight of Malta, in the Uffizi, his 
Portrait of a Lady, in the Borghese Gallery in Rome are the 
great ensamples which Titian followed and at last perfected. 

Of his actual pupils and scholars the most important was 
perhaps Sebastiano del Piombo (i 485-1 547), who had already 
passed through the hands of Giovanni Bellini and Cima, and 
was later to feel the influence of quite another master, Michel- 
angelo. Probably the best example of his work under 
Giorgione's influence is afforded by his S. Chrysostom in S. Gio- 
vanni Crisostomo in Venice, but his work in S. Bartolommeo 
approaches it in beauty, and if the Visitation of the Academy 
(95) be really his, it is worthy of him at this period. 

In Palma Vecchio (1480-15 2 8) we have another painter, 
strongly influenced by Giorgione, who had passed through 
Giovanni Bellini's hands. He was probably not a Venetian, 
but he most truly became one, as his work in S. Maria Formosa 
is enough to testify, though, as Morelli says of him, he always 
kept about him something of the mountains where he was 
born. Three pictures from his hand are to be found in the 
Academy : S. Peter Enthroned with six saints (302), Christ 
and the Woman Taken in Adultery (310), and an Assumption 
of the Virgin (315), a later work. And with Sebastiano is to 
be named another master, a pupil of Alvise Vivarini, who later 
came under Giorgione's influence— I mean that delightful 
master, Lorenzo Lotto (1480-1556). Lotto nowadays owes 
almost all his reputation to the enthusiasm of Mr. Berenson; 
unrepresented though he be in the Academy of Venice, we 
find his strangely moving work in the Carmine there, in 
S. Giacomo dell' Orio, and in SS. Giovanni e Paolo, and never 
without some thought, I suppose, of all that Venice had re- 
vealed to him of life, of life which continually demands a God. 



i62 VENICE AND VENETIA 

Nor did later painters such as Bonifazio (1510-1540) and 
Pordenone (1483-1540) escape the supreme influence of the 
great master. Bonifazio was a pupil of Palma Vecchio, but 
all that is really best in him he owes to Giorgione. His finest 
work in Venice is the Dives and Lazarus of the Academy 
(291), where also may be found a dramatic Massacre of the 
Innocents (319) from his hand, and a Judgment of Solomon 
(295), fine in feeling and rich in colour, which was painted in 
1533, and is probably his only in part. As for Pordenone he 
was probably the pupil of Alvise Vivarini, but his art owes all 
that is good in it to Giorgione, as the works from his hand in 
the Academy — a Portrait of a Lady (305), a Madonna and 
Child with saints and the Ottobon Family (323), S. Lorenzo 
Giustiniani and three other saints (316), and a Madonna of 
Carmel (323) — testify. 

But when all is said, when all Giorgione's pupils have been 
numbered and the men who in a later time came under his 
influence named, when even his own work, miraculous though 
it often seems and altogether beautiful and to be loved, is 
taken into account, Giorgione's greatest achievement was 
nevertheless the supreme and living work of Titian — of 
Titian who was his friend and who entered into his 
inheritance. 

This is no place to begin a discussion of Titian's achieve- 
ment, for that achievement is too wide and various and 
too generally understood and acknowledged for any words of 
mine to explain or to insure it. For most of us he remains 
the greatest painter our world has yet produced, and one of 
the most human and consoling. 

Born in the town of Cadore in 1477, Titian came to Venice 
and entered the bottega of Giovanni Bellini, yet no work we 
possess certainly from his hand shows him to us at this period 
of his life. We meet him first as the disciple and friend of 
his fellow-pupil Giorgione, here in Venice, in the Child Jesus 
with S. Catherine and S. Andrew of S. Marcuola, and more 
especially in the earlier work in the sacristy of the Salute, 
S. Mark Enthroned with four saints. The Academy possesses 



ACADEMY 163 

four of his works, but they are all of a later period, the 
earliest, the great Assumption, dating from 1518. This vast 
altarpiece, painted for the High Altar of the Frari, may be said 
to be the first of Titian's works in his grand, assured style. 
Yet, seen as it is under a top light in the Academy, I have 
never been able to really to understand it or to love it as I 
might have done had I had the fortune to see it in that dim, 
vast church of the Friars, where Mary must surely have seemed 
indeed to soar out of the gloom of the earth into the light of 
Heaven, where He who is the Light of Light stretches His arms 
to receive her. 

Another vast but more tender work, the Presentation of the 
Virgin, here in the Academy, was painted between 1534 and 
1538 for the very hall it still occupies in the Scuola della 
Carita, which we now call the Accademia. Perhaps that is 
why we care for it so much; and though the general scheme of 
the work is traditional, we have only to remember what Titian 
. makes of that small, awkward room — a very "street of palaces" 
— to realize something of his achievement. 

The S. John the Baptist (314), a work of about 1550, from 
the Church of S. Maria Maggiore, shows us Titian's use, almost 
religious in its effect, of landscape, and just there we seem to 
come again to Giorgione ; while in the Pieta (400) we have a 
work in his last wonderful manner, begun in 1573, two years 
before his death at the age of ninety-nine, and finished by Palma 
Giovane. Titian had painted this great and moving canvas 
for the tomb he wished to prepare for himself in the Cappella 
del Crocifisso in the Frari ; but before it could be finished, he 
died of the plague. And under this last achievement of 
the mighty painter Palma wrote: "What Titian left unfinished, 
Palma has completed with reverence, and has dedicated the 
work to God." 

Titian was the last of the true Venetian school ; those who 
came after him, great painters though they were, were foreigners 
like Paolo Veronese, or eclectics like Tintoretto. Yet among 
the followers of Titian one disciple from Treviso must be 
named before we speak of these two painters, though he, 



i64 VENICE AND VENETIA 

too, fell later under the all-pervading influence of Michel- 
angelo. 

Paris Bordone was born in Treviso in 1495, ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ 
1570. He was absolutely Venetian by education, and owed 
everything to Titian, yet he took a line of his own, and his 
masterpiece, now in the Academy, the Fisherman and the Doge 
(320), an early work, fully justifies his fame, for it is one of the 
most interesting works in that collection, which also possesses 
his Paradise (322). 

But the whole of the art of Venice after the death of Titian 
is, or seems to us to be, overshadowed by the heroic work, 
almost completely personal in its vision, of Jacopo Tintoretto, 
who was born in 15 18, and was perhaps the pupil of Boni- 
fazio, who passed in turn under the influence of Titian, 
of Parmigianino, and of Michelangelo, and yet always 
remained himself. It is, indeed, most characteristic of him 
that he is himself rather than Venetian. I do not mean that 
he was unmoved by his environment ; far from it : he was 
always at the mercy of it ; but he sought to express his own 
personal impressions of the world, of life, of Venetian life, 
rather than to be, as it were, the national voice, as Titian had 
certainly been with such a vast success. It is characteristic of 
him in his great spiritual egoism and strength that he was 
impatient of the art of Titian. The colour of Titian — yes, he 
cannot but accept that, but he proclaims that he will add to it 
the design of Michelangelo. In the attempt it seems to me 
he succeeded only in shadowing forth his discontent, in filUng 
the sky with the light and darkness of his own soul, in thrusting 
upon man a task too large for him, insisting always that he is 
rather a demigod than a mortal, a demigod who is never at 
peace, who has despised small things, and is at home only in the 
midst of a vast battle of light and darkness in which Heaven, 
earth, and his own soul are continually involved. He has 
never understood how to be at peace. How differently 
Giorgione has regarded the world ! For him the earth, the 
sky, and the life of man seem to pass into a strain of music; 
and for Titian, even in his latest period, all is to be understood 




z 

o 
< 



ACADEMY 165 

and expressed by means of beauty or character. It is only 
Tintoretto who sacrifices everything for energy, and, as it were, 
by flashes of light and darkness would reveal to us man as a 
kind of force, tragic and restless and unhappy upon the 
distracted earth. Yet he painted the beautiful and noble 
works in the Ante-Collegio of the Ducal Palace and in the 
year 1578. 

But he was the child of an unfortunate age. The vast and 
invincible forces of disaster that threatened Italy and Venice, 
the cataclysm of the Reformation, the need of a new revela- 
tion in religion, appealed to him with a terrible and tragic 
fascination ; before the bitter and overwhelming energy of 
hfe he was compelled to express himself and to cry out in 
the agony of his doubt concerning it. It is this appalling 
struggle, most of all with himself, with the fierce egoism of 
his own nature, that we see, I think, in so many of his works. 
The Church has been challenged, and so successfully that 
Christianity itself seems to be involved in the disaster. So 
he will insist on its everlasting certainty and truth, yes, for him 
himself, with an almost demonic energy and force. He will, 
like a prophet, call up that new revelation ; and so in the 
Scuola di S. Rocco we see all we have loved no longer humble 
and poor, but overwhelming in its exaggeration. The humble 
and appealing figures of the Gospel story are revealed to us 
anew, heroic in size, filled with a terrible physical energy and 
strength, in an overwhelming shadow and light such as no man 
till then had so much as dreamed of, and all is contrived with 
so much actuality, so realistically, that we feel it to be unreal and 
even impossible. These figures with their immense torsos and 
limbs, their vast gestures, and pride, and strength, are Madonna, 
Christ and His disciples : — only we do not recognize them. 
They fail in their appeal to us, they fail in beauty, not in 
energy or mastery or beautiful effects of painting, but in that 
beauty which is truth serene, which belongs to that perfect 
state which lieth in the heavens, seen there by Plato, and 
which S. Paul has told us is there eternal. Just this neither 
Titian nor Giorgione had ever willingly sacrificed, nor as I 



i66 VENICE AND VENETIA 

think, can any artist of any kind safely forget that it is an 
essential of our joy. 

There are many pictures by Tintoretto in the Academy, 
and among them are several portraits — the Portrait of Carlo 
Morosini (242), the Portrait of a Senator, a Senator in Prayer 
(241), the Portrait of Jacopo Soranzo (245), painted in 1564, 
the Portrait of Andrea Capello (234), an early work, the Por- 
traits of two Senators (244), and again of two Senators (240), 
and they are all of very great splendour, painted, it seems, with 
great swiftness and with a fine reserve. If then, when we 
remember Titian, these works seem less noble, and full of 
character though they be, to depend more upon their brilliance 
and a certain jewel-like quality, they are only less satisfying 
than those which are the greatest of all. 

With Tintoretto Venetian painting became both personal 
and eclectic, so that we can no longer regard it as the work 
of a national school; in Paolo Veronese it became frankly 
foreign. Paolo of Verona, born in 1528, never came under 
the influence of any Venetian master in his youth, he 
accepted the Spanish invasion with a cheerfulness that 
recommended his art to the great international religious 
Orders, and Venice herself in his day seems to have put 
aside the fear that Tintoretto had so tragically expressed for 
her. At any rate, she accepted Paolo with delight. And 
seeing the riot of his pictures on the great coffered ceilings 
of the palaces and churches of the city to-day, who shall blame 
her ? Her own art was dead ; she herself was mortally wounded ; 
only in such countrymen as the Bassanesi was any virtue left ; 
so Paolo had his fling, and, like the great entertainer he was, 
he conjured up for her all her vanished pride and assured her 
she was still Queen of the Adriatic. And for the religious 
he contrived most cheerful scenes in Heaven full of mastery 
and delight, and with a richness and splendour that make 
them still among the brightest things in the world, and to 
which Tiepolo one day will know how to give a lightness and 
a laughter and indeed a life as of birds or seraphs on the wing. 



XI 

THE ISLANDS OF THE GIUDECCA 
AND S. GIORGIO MAGGIORE 

THERE is nothing, I think, that is so effectual in luring 
us back to Venice again and again as the remembrance 
of those delicious hours — in early morning before the sun has 
southed, in the quiet afternoons that pass so slowly and so 
noiselessly in a city whose streets are the sea, or in the 
sultry evenings when through the twilight the far-off music 
of the singers on the Grand Canal comes to us faintly over 
the water — that are spent in a gondola going nowhither, but 
lazily " poking about," as we say, among the fishing-boats and 
broken quays of the Zattere or the Giudecca, in the forgotten 
side canals, or in the loveliness and silence of the lagoon, 
when by chance, and not by arrangement, we come upon 
some lost and tangled garden, some neglected church, or find 
where we least expect it — for on such expeditions he is wise 
who leaves his guide-book at home — a mosaic of the thirteenth 
century, a relief of the fifteenth, a picture by some lesser master 
of the great period. 

In Venice itself, in the streets, the piazzas, and the canals, 
however we go, on foot or in a gondola, there can be no one 
who has not often been weary. To pass through the great 
saloons of the Ducal Palace, to wander along the golden 
aisles of S. Mark's, to trudge through the narrow and ever- 
winding ways of the city, across numberless bridges, must 
ever bring with them, for all the continually changing vistas, 

a measure of boredom and fatigue which after the first surprise 

167 



i68 VENICE AND YENETIA 

is not outweighed altogether by the pleasure we are perhaps 
too eager and too determined in our search to enjoy. But it 
is different with the islands, which, whether far or near, hold 
nothing that is so obviously precious that we must perforce, if 
we are to get our money's worth, search it out. They remain 
really for the tourist " not worth seeing," and so at last they 
become for the less eager and more quiet traveller the most 
precious memory of his voyage, things which seem to have 
come to him almost by chance in a quiet hour between 
sleeping and waking, as it were, between a dream and a 
vision, swimming into his ken as a mirage might do, wonder- 
fully, in the brightness of the day or in the quietness of 
evening, scarcely real, after all, but something, nevertheless, 
that he will never forget. Sych is certainly the remembrance 
I shall always retain of Murano, of all the further islands, and 
if it is in a less tranquil mood maybe that most of us recall 
the islands of the Giudecca and S. Giorgio Maggiore, it is 
because we turn them into sights to be seen, rather than 
pleasures to be enjoyed. They lie, from the Piazza, across 
the very mouth of the Grand Canal, across the busiest sheet 
of water in all the Venetian lagoon, where many a great ship 
lies at anchor busily loading or unloading, and where all day 
long and far into the night, too, the little steamers from all 
over the Veneta Marina pass and repass, with much blowing 
of sirens and shouting amid feathers of steam and what seems 
to be a general confusion. 

This continually changing scene in all its restlessness that 
lies between the great and noble buildings of the Piazza and 
the rosy churches of Palladio upon the two islands is, how- 
ever, on any spring or summer afternoon redeemed from its 
mere liveliness and a certain measure of indignity by the 
impartial sun. On a grey day we see at once that much has 
been lost since Guardi passed by — and yet it is Guardi, first of 
all, Guardi and Canaletto, who have painted Venice most 
faithfully, and have used her least as a mere motive on which 
to build impossible dreams. But in the spring or summer 
sunshine there is no other city in the world that has so spark. 






THE ISLAND OF S. (JIORGIO, VENICE 



^ 



S. GIORGIO MAGGIORE 169 

ling, so gay, so sensuous, and so delightful an air as Venice 
and her islands as seen from the Molo of the Piazzetta. Far 
away eastward, in an exquisite bow of ivory and blue and gold, 
stretches the Riva, to the green of the Public Gardens about 
the blue and green of the lagoon. The countless boats that 
line that incomparable crescent, their sails hoisted, half hoisted, 
furled or unfurled, heaped about their gunwales or trailing 
in the water, seem to be of all colours, from golden red to 
green and black. A forest of light masts darkens the air. Here 
and there a great, tall ship, its hull black and red, strains at 
anchor, meeting the incoming tide. Far away by the Gardens 
a grey battleship waits on guard, the sunbeams glancing on its 
brass work, its shadow deep along the sea. Before one the 
gondolas, beaked and black, pass and repass amid the hurry of 
the little steamers from the many island ports, from the Lido 
and the lanes of the city itself. And as one lifts one's eyes, 
under the sky tranquil and soft, there rises before one the 
island of S. George with its rosy tower tipped with a golden 
angel, its great church with the facade of pale stone, and to 
the right the Giudecca with its line of houses, its deserted, cool 
churches, and all in front the great sea lane of the Canal della 
Giudecca with its line of great ships in the midst of it and its 
air as of a port or harbour of the sea. 

In the brilliant heat of the afternoon one is wont to hurry 
across that great waterway of the Giudecca to the shelter of 
the narrow canals of the island or the shade of the church 
of S. George. But at evening, at sunset, it is there rather than 
anywhere else one should linger watching the twilight come 
over the city, listening for the Ave bells, passing close under the 
great ships, talking with some sailor from Istria or the Dal- 
matian coast, or some sea captain from England, waiting for 
the sun to dip behind S. Eufemia, to sink behind the 
Euganean hills ; and then in the twilight one should steal 
out to the lagoon beyond and listen for the tide and think 
of the sea. For there, at least, one cannot doubt or question 
that Venice is a part of the sea; one of those marvellous 
cities perhaps that are founded there in the depths we may 



170 VENICE AND YENETIA 

not know, of whose towers and citadels and bells sailors from 
time to time have brought us word with hushed voices and 
eyes that no longer light up at a sight of home. Only Venice 
has risen, yes, with the sun, just to the surface of the sea 
which still lingers about her feet, in whose arms she is still 
in some sort inviolate. 

That sense of the sea which is too often absent in the 
curious and picturesque streets of Venice itself is ever 
present with us among the islands, and especially so, I 
always think, on the island of the Giudecca, where so con- 
siderable a part of the fisher folk of the Veneto seem to live, 
in whose side canals is gathered so great a gear of boats, and 
from whose dear gardens all the horizons are wide and endless. 
On the Giudecca itself there is but one church that anyone 
ever visits, and it must be confessed that it contains nothing, 
or very little, of any interest. The Redentore was built in 1576 
by Palladio to commemorate the deliverance of Venice from 
the plague of 157 1. Yet though that festival be still kept on 
the third Sunday in July, when a bridge of boats joins the 
church with the Fondamenta delle Zattere and a great pro- 
cession passes to and fro, the Redentore is not a plague 
church like the Salute, and almost nothing now within it 
reminds you of its genesis but its name, the fact of its dedica- 
tion to "the Redeemer." The Redentore is a Franciscan 
church with a Franciscan convent — now a barracks — at- 
tached to it ; and whatever may be thought of its architecture, 
it makes with S. Giorgio Maggiore a more considerable effect 
in its cold simplicity than any other building outside the city. 
Within, it must be confessed, it is chilling and empty. Over 
the first altar in the right aisle is a rather feeble Nativity by 
Francesco Bassano ; over the third altar we find a Tinto- 
retto, Christ bound to the Column ; and opposite is an As- 
cension by the same master, but without enthusiasm. Nor 
are the fairly good reliefs of the High Altar likely to win our 
regard, nor the Crucifixion with S. Mark and S. Francis, over 
the High Altar itself, by Campagna. The real reason why the 
tourist visits this church, apart from the fact that it is a work 



S. GIORGIO MAGGIORE 171 

of Palladio, would seem to be that in the sacristy there are 
three pictures of a great loveliness which of old were ascribed 
to Giovanni Bellini, but which to-day we assign to Bissolo and 
to Alvise Vivarini. The first, in which is Madonna with her 
little Son between S. John and S. Catherine, is by Bissolo, as 
is the second of Our Lady with the Child between S. Francis 
and S. Mark. The third, however, the most beautiful and the 
earliest of the three, is the work of Vivarini. There we see 
Madonna in a red robe with the Child asleep on her knees, 
while two angels play softly some heavenly lullaby. Over the 
green curtain which shuts out the world a goldfinch pipes 
softly in answer to the soft, strange music, and the whole 
earth has made an offering of her fruits to Him who in the 
beauty of the lilies is come to His kingdom. 

The Church of S. Giorgio on the island hard by is of much 
greater antiquity and interest. Once known, in the eighth 
century, as the Island of Cypresses, about 790 it became the site 
of a small church, and in 982 Doge Tribune Memmo gave the 
island to the Benedictines, who there established a monastery, 
which proved to be the greatest in Venice. This church and 
monastery were very much damaged in 1223 by an earthquake, 
but they were rebuilt at the expense of Doge Pietro Ziani, and 
finally, in the seventeenth century, by Andrea Palladio of 
Vicenza, the greatest architect of that age. S. Giorgio Mag- 
giore has been the scene of more than one great function, but 
the conclave which elected Pope Pius VH, which was held 
in the church in 1800, might seem to be the most celebrated. 
Six years later the convent was suppressed and turned into 
a barracks, which it has ever since remained. The story of the 
church is, however, by no means complete with the account 
given above. Always dedicated to S. George, in mo it 
received the body of S. Stephen from Doge Ordelafo 
Falier, and that gift gave rise to the great festival in 
which the Doge went in state procession to the church 
upon S. Stephen's Day and there heard Mass. 

The church contains a good many pictures, but nearly all 
of th em are of inferior merit. In the right aisle are a Nativity 



172 VENICE AND VENETIA 

by Jacopo Bassano and a wooden crucifix by Michelozzo the 
Florentine. Over the next altar is a Martyrdom of SS. Cosma 
and Damiano by Tintoretto, who has many pictures in the 
church, not one of them of any great merit. For instance, 
there is a Coronation of the Blessed Virgin here in the right 
transept, a Benedictine picture, and on the right wall of the 
sanctuary a gloomy Last Supper, and on the left, the best 
picture in the church, the Gathering of the Manna, by the 
same master. The choir stalls behind the High Altar are 
Flemish sixteenth-century work, and are adorned with scenes 
from the life of S. Benedict. 

Tintoretto's work is found again in the chapel near the left 
transept, where he has a Resurrection in which the donors 
figure. Doge Vincenzo Morosini and his family ; while in the 
left transept itself, near the altar and tomb of S. Stephen, is the 
martyrdom of that Saint, by the same master. In the left 
aisle there is nothing of interest save perhaps the monument 
near the door of Doge Marcantonio Memmo. 

As for the Campanile, which makes so fine a picture from 
the Piazzetta, and from which one may have quite the best 
view of the Veneto, it fell in 1774, killing a monk and in- 
juring others. It was rebuilt as we see it by Benedetto 
Buratti. 

Let no one imagine, however, that when he has seen these 
two churches he has done with the islands of S. Giorgio and i 
the Giudecca or exhausted all that they have to show. No 
impression could be more false than this, for the wise traveller 
will find in their by-ways more of the real Venetian life as it 
must have been lived by the common people for many cen- 
turies than he is likely to come upon anywhere else in Venice. 
And then he who does not know the gardens of the Giudecca, 
who has not wandered down their deserted alleys along the 
great sea-wall, or waited there for sunset, looking out over the 
wide and lonely lagoon to the Lidi and the sea, does not know 
Venice at all, but has been deceived by a city which more 
than any other in Italy has become a show-place for Germans 
and the barbarians and sentimentalists of all ages. 



THE GIUDECCA 173 

For me at least the Giudecca has a charm I find nowhere 
else ; for beautiful though the Riva or the Fondamenta delle 
Zattere can be in the early dawn and morning or in the 
evening twilight, neither the one nor the other has the gift of 
quietness or any garden at all, save the Giardino Pubblico at the 
Riva's end, which, as one soon finds, is rather a park than a 
garden. But in the Giudecca all that you miss in Venice 
to-day may be found. You cross the often turbulent tide of 
the great sea lane that divides it from Venice, you creep all up 
the wonderful great road where the big ships lie at anchor and 
you may hear on a summer evening so many of the songs of 
the world, you pass quite by the Redentore and S. Eufemia 
della Giudecca, which stands up so grandly against the gold of 
the sky, you come to the Rio di S. Biagio and turn into it, 
quite full, as it seems, with fishing-boats, its quays laden with sea 
tackle and nets and baskets and the ropes and gear of ships, 
among which the children play the games they have always 
played, dressed in rags of all sorts of colours, their dear 
tousled heads bending over toys, as we say, the great symbols 
of life after all and the affairs of men, a tiny ship or a doll, and 
I know not what else, intent upon their innocent business. In 
the doorways, in the windows, their mothers gossip and laugh 
softly, awaiting their men, whom you find everywhere on 
board those many little vessels, mending nets or sewing at a 
sail or stepping a new mast or splicing an oar or painting 
a name. 

Your gondola passes quite among these humble folk; their 
wide eyes of the sea gaze almost shyly into yours, you hear 
the children's voices, a boy with bare feet runs towards you 
begging for soldi^ a great bare-legged girl of sixteen insolently 
throws you a flower, the women stop their talk to watch you, 
the sailors give you greeting, till suddenly you pass out 
from between the houses, the quays and their various life, 
the noise and tumult are gone, and before you the great grey 
lagoon stretches away and away for ever, with here a little 
island, there, but very far off, a tiny tower, you know not 
where, that arises out of the sea to which this road or that, 



174 VENICE AND VENETIA 

marked out by the great grey posts of the lagoon, seems to 
lead, if one might follow it, into the sunset and the far away 
clear blue hills. The voices of life, the noise of the world, 
have died away ; here there is only silence and the sigh of the 
sea rising and falling along these shallow waters. Your 
gondolier turns east, but it is the same view that meets you, 
only, still far off, you may see other islands and what looks 
like a long, low, narrow coast, over which a band of white 
foam-mist seems to be stealing : but the whole world here 
is caught in a smiling and serene light, a touch of gold is on the 
blue and grey of the waters that lap softly or impatiently 
about your boat as it turns in answer to the oar. As in 
a dream you glide along the seashore of the Giudecca. 
There are no buildings here or houses at all, only a long rosy 
wall of brick overhung by vines and great fig-tree boughs and 
the flame-like flowers of the pomegranate. In the soft 
summer wind the olives shade into silver ; far off against the 
apse of the Redentore two cypresses sway a little and are still. 
Your gondolier steers to the left, you enter a quite deserted 
canal between some old houses under a tower and a broken j 
look-out. The water is like an emerald under the wall where 
the vines dip their leaves. Presently you come to a little 
green door of painted wood set in a wall of plaster and hung 
with an iron ring for knocker and a rusty bell-pull. Here | 
your man gently comes to rest. The bell is rung, the door 
opened, and you pass with a quiet welcome not into a house, 
for there is no house, but into what at first sight seems to be 
a courtyard set about with ilexes and tall oleanders white and 
red, and between the olives are broken statues covered with 
golden lichen and stained by the weather, and between the 
oleanders are set great pots of oranges and lemons, while all 
before you stretches a green vista of garden, of vineyard, of 
olive grove, that ends at last in the sea. It is there you 
find yourself at last always, at the end of that vista, in a little 
stone temple-like house, with grapes before you on the cool 
stone table, watching the sun set over the wide and lonely . 
lagoon, waiting for the wind from the sea. } 



THE GIUDECCA 175 

At first what you see is a study in purple and gold — the gold 
of the sunset, of the towers and cupolas of S. Lazzaro, of the 
sand of the Lidi, and the purple of the sky and of the sea -, 
but slowly, so slowly that you try to mark each change, the 
whole world seems to glow and rather to give light to the sky 
than to receive light from it. The gold burns into flame, the 
sea changes, and instead of a great purple flower you see a 
great opal flaming with every colour in your heart; the wind 
comes out of the mystery of the east, and the whole world 
seems to be on fire. Then over those beautiful waters come 
the bells^ brazen tongues galloping and vibrating, from the 
city and the islands, and the light dies out of the sky. All 
you see is a study in grey and blue, touched faintly here 
and there by the pale gold of some half-imagined star. As 
you turn to find your gondola far away over the Lido you see 
a great bird silently flying into the night. 



XII 



THE LIDO, S. LAZZAKO, S. SERVOLO, 

AND S. ELENA 

IF there be one excursion which is invariably made by all 
visitors to Venice, it is that to the Lido, which, however, 
as it is generally undertaken by steamboat and for the purpose 
either of bathing or of watching others bathe, is scarcely worth 
the trouble of the journey. Yet the Lido, as it is called, is 
very well worth a visit if it be rightly seen, and the way thither, 
if made in a gondola, is as interesting and as pleasant as 
another. But how many are there among the many thou- 
sands who visit Venice annually who know how to put this 
journey and visit to their proper uses ? 

As I see it there are but two ways of going to the Lido, 
and both of these should, if possible, be undertaken by the 
traveller. The first is by gondola, and should occupy an 
afternoon, the return being made at evening. During this 
visit the church, fort, and cemetery of S. Niccolb should be 
visited, and a sight obtained of the Porto di Lido. As for 
the bathing, after our English seas the sluggish Adriatic might 
seem but a poor substitute. 

The second way in which the Lido should be visited is an 

affair of the journey only. It should be undertaken at night 

about nine o'clock, and the best way to get the utmost out of 

it is to embark on one of the little steamers at the Piazzetta 

station and to go and return in her without landing. Nothing 

the traveller will see elsewhere by daylight will impress him 

half so much with the true character of Venice and the won- 

176 



THE LIDO 177 

derful night beauty of the city as this. It is one of the things 
the easiest to do and the best worth doing while one is in 
Venice, and not one in a thousand tourists ever dreams of 
doing it. Yet it is only on such a dim voyage as this that 
Venice, the real Venice, can be found, for in such an hour she 
seems to be risen from the dead. 

But whether the Lido be visited after all by daylight or 
dark, the best of the excursion is always the voyage, the 
journey, say, by gondola in the afternoon past S. Giorgio, 
down the beautiful crescent of the Riva lined with ships, out 
past the Public Gardens to the far-away strip of seashore we call 
the Lido. The islands one passes on the way, S. Lazzaro and 
S. Servolo, it is best to take on the way home ; on the way 
out we give ourselves wholly to the glittering, dancing joy of 
the great sea lane down which we pass in the shadow of the 
great ships, till at last we drift ashore where that lane turns 
south and land at the Lido. 

But what, after all, we may well ask ourselves, is the Lido, 
and why is it so called ? If it be an island, like S. Lazzaro, 
S. Servolo, and S. Giorgio Maggiore, why, remembering the 
great church which stands upon it, is it not called S. Niccolb ; 
and if it be not an island, what is it ? 

The Lido, as all the world unites to call it, is, as we shall 
soon see if we take the trouble to examine it in its entire 
length of some ten miles, certainly an island, since it is sur- 
rounded by water, but it differs in this from the true island of 
the lagoon, that it is surrounded on one side by the waters of 
the lagoon and on the other by the sea. It is, then, as its 
name tells us, the true shore of Venice, and a voyage which 
took in the whole of the lagoon would show us that of all the 
Lidi, those long and narrow sandbanks which shut in the 
lagoon from the sea, and between which at the various Porti 
the tide rushes so swiftly, it is this which is most truly Vene- 
tian, for in its whole length from S. Niccolb and the Porto di 
Lido on the north to the Forte Rocchetta and the Porto di 
Malamocco on the south, it completely defends Venice from 
the sea, and shuts her into the lagoon. Thus it is that from 

N 



178 VENICE AND VENETIA 

Venice there are but two ways out to sea, but two gates by 
which the Venetian fleet might sail to meet its enemy : the 
one was the Porto di Malamocco and the other the Porto 
di Lido. These two gates are set, as has been said, at the 
southern and northern extremities of the great sandbank we 
call the Lido, and they are now, as they always have been, 
the true gates of Venice, built and kept largely by the labour 
of man. But the Porto di Malamocco is some ten miles from 
the city at the end of a long and difficult channel ; it has thus 
always been the lesser in importance of the two. For the 
Porto di Lido opposite the Castello and the arsenal of the 
city, is so close at hand that a fishing-boat sailing out from 
Veneta Marina can by this gate in less than half an hour gain 
the open sea. Thus it is that the Porto di Lido has always 
been, and remains to-day, the great sea gate of Venice ; and 
though scarcely a tourist among the thousands who visit the 
Lido ever goes so far as S. Niccolb or gets a sight of the 
Porto, this is the chief reason for a journey thither, and for 
me, at least, the sole reason why I ever go there. 

For, to tell the bare truth, there is nothing particularly 
Venetian, nothing charming at all in the modern Bagni del 
Lido and the large and vulgar hotel and Casino, which are all 
most tourists ever see. The bathing, as I have said, is 
mediocre, and must be indulged in the company of a host 
of strange folk from the Germanies and I know not where 
else, which makes it rather curious than pleasant. A kind of 
barbarism I have met with nowhere else seems here to be 
merely the custom. The sight of overfed, fat, and disgusting 
figures in bathing dresses that fit like a glove can never be a 
pretty sight. Here all German women of the middle class of 
forty and upwards use such costumes. We know they have 
no claim to good taste, but watching them one might think 
they had never indulged in sea-bathing before. As for the 
men, only less appalling in appearance than the women, their 
costume consists for the most part of a pair of small drawers 
which would scarcely pass on the loneliest Cornish beach. 
Yet it is the mere barbarism of these people and their ugliness 



THE LIDO 179 

which appals one, till the pathos of it is lost in disgust. 
I find bathing as delightful as most healthy people, but this 
mixed crowd of more than naked people of all shapes, sizes, 
and d.'formities is so pathetically indecent that one presently 
finds it only horrible. 

All this, however, serves our purpose well enough. We 
could not, if we would, linger over this ugliness, and since 
there is but little else to do but to bathe and to eat at the 
Lido, we are compelled in fear of boredom to set out for Forte 
di S. Niccolo and the Porto di Lido. 

That is a good way that takes one along the shore beside 
the sea, but if it seems too tiring there is the road be- 
hind the theatre. Nevertheless the way by the shore should 
be taken, for it is not only the more pleasant, but has 
memories for us of two of our countrymen, Shelley and 
Byron, who, as the former tells us, would often ride here 
together : — 

*' I rode one evening with Count Maddalo 
Upon the bank of land which breaks the flow 
Of Adria towards Venice. A bare strand 
Of hillocks heaped from ever-shifting sand, 
Matted with thistles and amphibious weeds 
Such as from earth's embrace the salt ooze breeds, 
Is this ; an uninhabited sea-side, 
Which the lone fisher, when his nets are dried, 
Abandons. And no other object breaks 
The waste, but one dwarf tree, and some few stakes 
Broken and unrepaired ; and the tide makes 
A narrow space of level sand thereon, — 
Where 'twas our wont to ride while day went down. 
This ride was my delight. I love all waste 
And solitary places ; where we taste 
The pleasure of believing what we see 
Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be : 
And such was this wide ocean, and this shore 
More barren than its billows. And, yet more 
Than all, with a remembered friend I love 
To ride as then I rode ; — for the winds drove 
The living spray along the sunny air 
Into our faces ; the blue heavens were bare, 



i8o VENICE AND YENETIA 

Stripped to their depths by the awakening north ; 
And from the waves sound like delight broke forth, 
Harmonizing with solitude, and sent 
Into our hearts aerial merriment." . . . 

The Forte S. Niccolo, to which one presently comes along 
this lean shore, guards the Porto di Lido. Within it is the 
old Protestant cemetery, where Sir Francis Vincent, almost 
the last ambassador Great Britain sent to the Republic, lies 
buried. It is not his grave, however, that has brought us on 
this long pilgrimage, but the Porto di Lido itself. Here for 
more than eight hundred years the Doge upon Ascension Day, 
in the name of Venice, wedded the Adriatic. The ceremony 
arose in this fashion. As we have seen, before the end of the 
tenth century Venetian commerce had already grown to be of 
considerable importance, but it was always at the mercy, sea- 
borne as it was, of the Dalmatian pirates. This Venice 
suffered till the great Doge, Pietro Orseolo II, arose in 991, 
and began to make preparations to stop the pirate raids once 
and for all. He first of all got a Golden Bull from the 
Emperor Basil of Constantinople, which conferred extra- 
ordinary privileges upon the Venetian merchants in the East, 
and in return the Venetian fleet was to be at the service of 
Constantinople for the transport of troops. Having thus made 
treaty with the suzerain power, the Doge decided, with the 
approval of the people, to suppress the pirates. This was the 
first war Venice had ever undertaken. On Ascension Day, in 
the year 998, the fleet, under the command of the Doge, set 
sail out of Porto di Lido, took Curzola and Lagosta by 
assault, and was, indeed, entirely successful, the Doge return- 
ing with the title Duke of Dalmatia, conferred upon him by 
the grateful Dalmatian towns which the pirates had continually 
spoilt. For a hundred and eighty years thereafter it was the 
custom of the Doge, the Bishop, and the officers of the 
Republic, accompanied by the people in a great crowd, to go 
out by water to the Porto di Lido on Ascension Day, and 
there to perform a great ceremony in memory of the victory. 
Such in its origin and beginning was the Wedding of the 



THE LIDO i8i 

Adriatic. Then in 1177, in the time of Doge Ziani, when 
Alexander III was Pope, Frederic Barbarossa, the Emperor, 
who hated him, proclaimed an antipope, banished Alexander 
from Italy, and threatened all who gave him shelter. The 
Pope came to Venice incognito, and is said to have lived as a 
beggar, or, as others have it, to have taken service with the 
religious there for some time. When he was recognized the 
Doge received him with every honour, and since the advan- 
tage of Venice seemed to jump that way, took his part against 
Frederic, sent envoys and orators to Pavia to remonstrate with 
him in the name of the Republic, and to suggest that a meet- 
ing betwixt Pope and Emperor should take place in Venice. 
The popular Venetian account is that the Emperor refused to 
acknowledge Alexander. Then the Doge, when he learned 
this, determined on war and made it, and defeated the 
Imperialists at the battle of Salvore, where the Emperor's son 
was taken prisoner. This, however, is a myth, there was no 
such battle ; but after a time the Emperor agreed to come to 
Venice, and was there received in the atrium of St. Mark's 
by the Pope, supported by the Doge. He knelt humbly and 
asked forgiveness. Yet it is said he murmured too, " Not to 
you do I kneel but to Peter " ; but the Pope answered, "Both 
to me and to Peter." And Frederic said no more. Then the 
Venetian legend tells how the Doge escorted the Pope and 
Emperor so far as Ancona on the way to Rome, and there the 
Pope in gratitude presented to the Doge the ring, the symbol 
of supremacy in and over the Adriatic, which he thus con- 
ferred upon them. From that time forth the Doge when he 
went out to Porto di Lido on Ascension Day wedded the sea 
with this ring, for the legend tells us that this in turn the 
Pope required, that the Doge should wed the sea in the name 
of Venice as one weds a wife. Thus the ceremony which 
endured till Napoleon's time was begotten. The Doge and 
his suite in a great vessel, later called the Bucentoro, were 
rowed by many banks of oars out to the Porto di Lido, 
followed by the whole concourse of the people. Arrived at 
the mouth of the Porto, the vessel was turned with its poop 



1 82 VENICE AND YENETIA 

to the sea, the Bishop blessed the nuptial ring and presented 
it to the Doge, then he poured holy water into the sea, where 
the Doge forthwith cast in the ring, saying : " Mare, noi ti 
sposiamo in segno del nostro vero e perpetuo dominio " ("O 
sea, we wed thee in sign of our true and everlasting dominion "). 
Such was the ritual, and thus was built up in the hearts of 
men a tradition of sea power and sea dominion which endured 
for so many hundred years. 

As one makes one's way back along that desolate shore, 
thinking of Venice then and now, maybe towards sunset, 
we shall console ourselves only with the lines Shelley wrote, 
remembering this very place : — 

" As those who pause on some delightful way, 
Though bent on pleasant pilgrimage, we stood 
Looking upon the evening, and the flood 
Which lay between the city and the shore, 
Paved with the image of the sky. The hoar 
And airy Alps, towards the north, appeared 
Through mist — an heaven-sustaining bulwark reared 
Between the east and west; and half the sky 
Was roofed with clouds of rich emblazonry, 
Dark purple at the zenith, which still grew 
Down the steep west into a wondrous hue 
Brighter than burning gold, even to the rent 
Where the swift sun yet paused in his descent 
Among the many-folded hills. They were 
Those famous Euganean hills, which bear. 
As seen from Lido through the harbour piles, 
The likeness of a clump of peaked isles. 
And then, as if the earth and sea had been 
Dissolved into one lake of fire, were seen 
Those mountains towering, as from waves of flame, 
Around the vaporous sun ; from which there came 
The inmost purple spirit of light, and made 
Their very peaks transparent." 

All the way back to Venice from the Lido at sunset those 
mountains, like " a clump of peaked isles," stand like a vision 
on the horizon to the south over the limitless lagoon, but it is 



S. LAZZARO 183 

from the quiet garden of S. Lazzaro that I have most often 
seen them. 

The island of S. Lazzaro is close to the Lido landing-place, 
and there is set an Armenian convent which is famous by 
reason of the fact that Byron studied Armenian there for 
some months during his long stay in Venice in 1816-17. 

" By way of divertissement," he writes to Moore in 
December, 181 6, "I am studying daily, at an Armenian 
monastery, the Armenian language. I found that my mind 
wanted something craggy to break upon; and this, as the 
most difficult thing I could discover here for an amusement, I 
have chosen, to torture me into attention. It is a rich lan- 
guage, however, and would well repay anyone the trouble of 
learning it. I try, and shall go on ; but I answer for nothing, 
least of all for my intentions or my success. There are some 
very curious MSS. in the monastery, as well as books ; trans- 
lations also from great originals now lost, and from Persian 
and Syriac, etc., besides works of their own people. Four 
years ago the French instituted an Armenian professorship. 
Twenty pupils presented themselves on Monday morning, full 
of noble ardour, ingenuous youth, and impregnable industry. 
They persevered, with a courage worthy of the nation and of 
universal conquest, till Thursday, when fifteen of the twenty 
succumbed to the six-and-twentieth letter of the alphabet. It 
is, to be sure, a Waterloo of an alphabet — that must be said 
for them." 

As for the convent to-day, it is one of the quietest and most 
delightful places in all the Venetian islands. The monks are 
busy, cheerful, and most courteous ; they still possess a fine 
library, for, seeing that the convent is under the protection of 
Turkey, Italy has not dared to rob them. They also have 
now a printing press, which in Byron's day they did not 
possess, if one may judge by the trouble he took to get the 
Armenian grammar, composed by one of the Fathers, set up 
and printed in England. It was his design that the faithful 
Murray, who sent him his tooth powder and his magnesia and 
published his poems, should publish this work also. This, I 



i84 VENICE AND VENETIA 

think, never came to pass. But among Lord Byron's papers 
there was discovered the Preface he wrote for the work. 
There he speaks of this convent. 

" The society of the Convent of S. Lazarus appears to 
unite," he says, "all the advantages of the monastic institu- 
tion without any of its vices. The neatness, the comfort, the 
gentleness, the unaffected devotion, the accomplishments, and 
the virtues of the brethren of the Order are well fitted to strike 
a man of the world with the conviction that ' there is another 
and a better ' even in this life. 

"The men are the priesthood of an oppressed and noble 
nation which has partaken of the proscription and bondage of 
the Jews and of the Greeks, without the suUenness of the 
former and the servility of the latter. The people have attained 
riches without usury and all the honours that can be awarded 
to slavery without intrigue. But they have long occupied, 
nevertheless, a part of ' the House of Bondage ' which has 
lately multiplied her many mansions. It would be difficult, 
perhaps, to find the annals of a nation less stained with crimes 
than those of the Armenians, whose virtues have been those 
of peace and their vices those of compulsion. . . ." 

Perhaps we know more of the Jews, the Greeks, and the 
Armenians to-day than Byron did. At any rate, we are, I 
hope, less likely to be moved by their "misfortunes"; but, 
however that may be, no one who finds himself in Venice 
should fail to visit the island monastery of S. Lazzaro. Byron, 
with all his eloquence and his almost daily visits to the con- 
vent, does not speak of what for most of us always remains, I 
think, the most charming memory of our visit — I mean the 
garden of the monks, which is planted with vines, figs, 
oleanders, almonds, and cypresses, and is one of the quietest 
and most beautiful places within reach of the city. 

Thence we see not far away across the lagoon the island of S. 
Servolo, where the Emperor Otho III stayed in hiding when he 
came to see the city in 998. He had heard, it seems, of the 
Venetian treaty with the Eastern Emperor and of the great fleet 
that Venice was preparing against the Dalmatian pirates that 



S. SERVOLO 185 

was soon to give her the sovereignty of the Adriatic, and, 
pondering on these things, half in mere curiosity and half with 
a political intention, he determined to visit Venice and the 
great Doge, Pietro Orseolo. One night in the moonlight a boat 
with eight rowers might have been seen approaching the 
island of S. Servolo, which at that time was occupied by a 
half-ruined Benedictine monastery. At the island they landed, 
and on knocking at the door of the monastery two of them 
were admitted by a man of great stature. Presently three 
came out where two had gone in, and, taking a smaller boat 
that lay in the shadow, they set out with two rowers for the 
city. Quite through the city they went, " wherever there was 
anything worthy to be seen," but no one noticed them, or 
if they did, guessed that the three sitting in the stern were the 
Emperor Otho III, the Doge Pietro Orseolo, and his secretary, 
Paul the Deacon, who tells the tale. 

The island of S. Servolo to-day is occupied by the Lunatic 
Asylum of Venice, built in 1725. 

" ' Look, Julian, on the west, and listen well 
If you hear not a deep and heavy bell.' 
I looked, and saw between us and the sun 
A building on an island ; such an one 
As age to age might add, for uses vile — 
A windowless, deformed, and dreary pile ; 
And on the top an open tower, where hung 
A bell, which in the radiance swayed and swung ; 
We could just hear its hoarse and iron tongue. 
The broad sun sank behind it and it tolled 
In strong and black relief. ' What we behold 
Shall be the madhouse and its belfry tower,' 
Said Maddalo, 'and even at this hour 
Those who may cross the water hear that bell 
Which calls the maniacs, each one from his cell 
To vespers.'" 

Further away beyond S. Servolo towards the Public Gardens 
is the island of S. Elena, once lovely and occupied by a great 
convent, now a ruin, an island of graves where the Giustiniani 
and the Loredani sleep in peace. Till the year 1880, indeed, 



1 86 VENICE AND YENETIA 

the island of S. Elena, where S. Helena, the mother of the 
Emperor Constantine, a British woman born at Colchester, 
was buried, was one of the loveliest of the Venetian islands : 
"A beautiful Gothic cloister where roses and jessamine poured 
their masses of blossom over the parapets and a large garden 
with exquisite views towards S. Pietro and Murano" called 
every traveller in Venice to this shrine. In that year, however, 
the cloister was delivered over to an iron foundry, and the 
whole place has become one with the modern vileness of the 
world. This same sort of thing is going on with an ever- 
increasing horror all over Italy, and indeed all over the world. 
Yet any protest against it seems to excite all the villainy 
latent in human nature, as though indeed, as one is often 
tempted to think, before destroying us the gods had made 
us mad. 



XIII 

THE ISLANDS OF S. MICHELE AND 

MURANO 

TO leave Venice behind, with all its curious bustle and air 
of business, its rushing steamers and pushing tourists, 
becomes, I think, ever more and more the need of the 
traveller who has lingered with her perhaps too long, perhaps 
not long enough, for his content. But you will not leave her 
behind if you go to the Giudecca, and certainly you will not 
do so by going to the Lido ; to be free of her, to possess the 
true lagoon, your road lies northward towards Murano, or, 
better still, to far Burano and Torcello. 

I know of few more delicious ways of spending a summer 
evening than to order your gondola about four or five o'clock, 
and after passing quite across Venice to come out by the 
Fondamenta Nuova and so to pass slowly, slowly, in the 
lowering sunlight across those bright and silent waters that 
lie between S. Michele and Venice, between S. Michele and 
Murano. For it is the lagoon that remains still to us. All 
else has suffered an immeasurable change. Venice, let us 
make no mistake about it, is nothing now but make-believe ; 
the steamers that rush and shriek up and down the Grand 
Canal are as bad as any motor omnibus, and they have utterly 
changed what was a city of silence and peace into a worse 
pandemonium than Naples or Rome ; and if one should be so 
unfashionable as to abhor all this noise, this crushing of the 

crowd, this rubbing of shoulders, this much ado about nothing, 

187 



i88 VENICE AND YENETIA 

there is but one thing to do, and that is to leave Venice 
altogether and to escape into the lagoon to discover and to 
wander among the islands there. Let the traveller, the un-; 
fashionable traveller for whom I have always written, remember 
— and I think he is not likely to forget it — that he will not be 
able to see Venice, to enjoy Venice, and to escape all this 
horrible business by hiring a gondola and rowing about the 
city. In a gondola to-day he is actually more at the mercy of 
the crowd than in a steamboat. In the Grand Canal he wilh 
always go at the risk of his life or, at any rate, of his comfort, 1 
because the wash of these accursed steamboats is such that 
when one comes by — and one is always coming by, and often | 
two — he will be thrown and hurled about till he is bruised 
and half sick, and the stench cast up by the churned waters 
will presently make him heartily sorry he ever set out. Nor 
will he escape the general beastliness by taking to the side 
canals; as he passes under the little bridges it will be a 
miracle if he be not spat upon, and every time he lands to see 
a church a crowd of wastrels will assault him and demand 
money not for any reason or service, for they are incapable of 
either, but because he is a " tourist " and they are " the people." 
After trying every way and every cunning and expedient, after 
being battered for weeks by "the people," spat upon, cursed, 
swamped in the Grand Canal and all but capsized in the Canal 
della Giudecca, after struggling for my tea every evening for a 
month in the Piazza, after being awakened every morning at 
five by the hooters of the factories and the sirens of the 
steamers, and dazed all day with the all but universal German 
tongue, I escaped, I escaped to Murano. There at least was 
the wreck of an old peace, there at least I found a memory of 
quietness, a shred of decency and politeness, a shadow, some- 
thing I thought above rubies, of an ancient dignity in human 
nature, and, above all perhaps, I no longer heard the Piazza 
di S. Marco referred to on all sides as the " Marcus Platz." 
I do not claim — far from it — that Murano is perfect ; it only 
seemed to me something to be thankful for, as even a Liberal 
Government does after the appalling brutality and ignorance 



S. MICHELE 189 

revealed by a General Election. As a fact, I soon left Murano, 
for I found something far better, worth, indeed, its weight in 
gold ; but the ordinary traveller, even though he be unfashion- 
able, has come to see Venice, which he cannot do from my 
refuge. To see Venice he must live in Venice ; but Murano 
and the way thither offers him a delightful rest from his labour 
and a real consolation, I think, in the midst of his disillusion. 
For once out beyond the Fondamenta Nuova all is peace. 
The steamers are few and very far between and their route is 
not yours. In your gondola you are free, you may go where 
you will if the tide be not very low, and the whole of that wide 
and beautiful world is yours. And how wide it is ! In the 
foreground and very near, it is true, lies the island of S. 
Michele, the cemetery island, to which you may see, perhaps, 
a gondola with a black flag, a priest in the stern, and a flower- 
covered burden in the bows making its way ; and beyond, but 
still not very far off, lies Murano with its two beautiful Cam- 
panili. But to the east there is so wide an expanse of still 
water, out of which here and there emerge shadowy Campanili 
or the faintest mirage of a church or a town, that it seems — 
as indeed it is — a quiet world of dreams. At first all the west 
is blocked by the great bridge by which the railroad reaches 
Venice, but presently as you pass further on your way this 
sinks into its proper insignificance and the world stretches 
away under the gold of the sun to those blue, far-off, islanded 
hills that are the Euganean. Here and there in the soft 
summer sky a great white cloud loiters on its way, and these, 
like the lovely scene over which they cast so deep a shadow, 
are eternal things. A flutter of smoke, maybe, hovers over 
the chimneys of the glass factories at Murano, but even that 
is very old and has appeared in this landscape for very many 
centuries. You will meet here no strangers ; you may forget 
what fools call progress and criminals " progressive politics " 
and "social movements," for the one is made of noise and 
lies, and here is quietness and honesty, and the other is all of 
discontent and hatred, and here is happiness and charity. For 
where will you find more love than in the heart of Death, who 



190 VENICE AND YENETIA 

notes all these poor people in Venice and, however noisy and 
noxious and wicked they be, gives them all quietness at last 
and establishes them according to their hearts' desire, mak ngi 
them landowners of six foot or so in this island of S. Michele,' 
which, small though it be, has yet room in it for all Venice ? 
What satisfaction there is in that ! 

The island of S. Michele, until the year 1810, had been fori 
some six hundred years in the occupation of the Order of thej 
Camaldolesi. In those days the present S. Michele consistedl 
of two islands, S. Michele and S. Cristoforo della Pace ; but 
in 1 8 10 the canal which divided them was filled up and the 
whole became a cemetery, the convent of the Camaldolesij 
passing to the Friars Minor Riformati. The Church of S.' 
Cristoforo, a fine work by Pietro Lombardo, was destroyed, 
and the precious works of art which it contained either 
perished with it or were carried and sold out of Italy. Among 
those destroyed were an altarpiece by Giovanni Bellini and 
another by Francesco Guardi ; but a beautiful Madonna and 
Child by Alvise Vivarini and a triptych by some followers 
of Basaiti are now in Berlin. The only work once in S. 
Cristoforo that still remains in Italy is, I think, the Madonna 
with Saints, a work by Basaiti, now in S. Pietro Martire at 
Murano. 

Then in 1872 a new cemetery embracing the old was built 
on the island, and is reached from the beautiful fifteenth- 
century church of S. Michele, where the Cappella Emiliana 
is the work of Guglielmo Bergamesco. Here are some fine 
reliefs in the manner of Sansovino. The church was once 
full of fine paintings. Here of old was the Santa Margherita 
of Giulio Romano, now in Vienna, a triptych and a Resur- 
rection by Giovanni Bellini, and a work by Cima. All three 
are now in the Berlin Gallery. 

From the church we pass into the beautiful cloister of the 
Camaldolesi, where Gregory XVI, who was a monk here, must 
often have walked. It was rebuilt in 1469, and is a work of 
the Lombardi. 

But S. Michele will not keep us long, for the true goal of < 



MURANO T91 

our journey is Murano, if indeed we have a goal, if the beauty 
and silence of the way be not in themselves worth all the rest 
beside. 

In the days of the greatness and splendour of Venice 
Murano was one of the most famous and one of the most 
beautiful islands in the lagoon. " In the fifteenth and six- 
teenth centuries," the Abate Vincenzo Zanelli tells us, 
" Murano had thirty thousand inhabitants, while to-day it 
boasts but five thousand." It was chiefly given over to the 
manufacture of that famous Venetian glass, a craft which in 
our own time has once more been revived. But it was also 
full of vineyards and olive gardens, and supported a happy 
as well as an industrious population. And in those days there 
were gardens there, on that red and green island, gardens as 
famous as their owners — Andrea Navagero, Bembo, Aretino, 
Aldo. Where are they gone, what has become of the luxurious 
convents where Ancilla Soranzo walked in her laces, where 
Cipriana Morosini smiled, and Beatrice Falier, Eugenia 
Muschiera, and Zanetta Balbi listened to the secret love of 
many a licentious patrician, while the waters lapped the walte 
of the gardens where they wandered and the wind passed 
like a ghost through the olives ? They are all gone, their 
beautiful names are forgotten. Murano knows them no more. 
To-day all her old life is gone out. Only the flame of her 
furnaces roars as of old, and the blowing-irons are still busy, 
and her sons still shape harmonious vases in the shadow and 
glow of the workshops. Murano is still the island of glass. 
You may see them there beside the furnace, the men of 
Murano, the heirs of the great craftsmen, handling their tools 
even to-day with something of the old mastery. At the end 
of the blowing-irons, inspired by their breath, the molten glass 
swells, twists, becomes silvery in a little cloud, shines like a 
moon, crackles, divides into a thousand fine glittering frag- 
ments, finer than the webs of the finest dew sprinkled at dawn . 
The apprentices still place the pear-shaped mass of burning 
waste in the spot appointed by the master, and the mass at his 
will still lengthens out, twists, and transforms itself into some 



192 VENICE AND YENETIA 

lovely and useful shape — a perfect vase, or a handle or rim, 
a spout or a foot or a fragile stem — till you wonder to see itj 
for in that craft there is no gesture that is not noble, mys-I 
terious, delicate, and full of mastery. It is an old art thatl 
the machine has not yet spoiled, that still lies in the hands 
of man. And its home is this melancholy, half-forgotten 
island, where the green opalescent water floats over the long 
weeds in the broad waterways in the midst of the lagoon 
where the landscape stretches far away, in long lines of 
silence. 

There is little strictly to be seen in Murano. One wanders 
about the half-deserted streets in a town that is shrunken into 
itself, that is evidently very old, but with only a few marks 
here and there of the nobility of age — in the Church of S. 
Pietro Martire, in the gaunt Duomo of S. Donato. Only 
everywhere the silence and loneliness of the lagoon seemj 
to be at home there; the space of those wide horizons, the' 
dome of that clear sky, like a clear globe of glass, surround 
it with an immense quietness that nothing would seem able; 
to break. 

In S. Pietro Martire, a large and simple basilica built in 
1507, is a large altarpiece by Giovanni Bellini of the Madonna 
and Child enthroned under a canopy about which twelve 
seraphim are floating and beside which two angels make 
music. Before Madonna the Doge Barbarigo II kneels in his 
robes of state, introduced by S. Andrea, while on the other 
side S. Augustine stands holding his book and his crosier ; 
and far away through the gardens and over the hills stretches 
a delicious landscape in which a little city appears. Here, too, 
is a fine picture of the Madonna in glory with eight saints, by 
Marco Basaiti. Madonna is standing on a little cloud that 
has brought her from Heaven close to the earth, and the 
eight saints stand in a half-circle beneath her, and all about 
her, hiding at her feet or in the rosy clouds, are cherubim, and 
the whole scene is set in a delicious landscape, the hills 
crowned by towers strangely like those of Castelfranco. Close 
by is a Madonna and Child enthroned with five saints by the 



MURANO 193 

pseudo-Boccaccino, and not far away a fine picture of S.Jerome 
in the desert from the hand of Paolo Veronese. 

But interesting and charming in its quietness though S. 
Pietro may be, it will not keep us long from S. Donate — 
SS. Maria e Donato as I think it should rightly be called. 
This church is of very ancient origin. According to the 
legend — and why should we doubt it ? — the church was founded 
by Otho the Great, to whom the Blessed Virgin appeared, 
bidding him build her a church in this three-cornered 
meadow, scattered then with scarlet lilies. That a church 
existed here in the tenth century we cannot doubt, for its 
incumbent — the incumbent of the Basilica di Santa Maria 
Plebania di Murano — took an oath of obedience to the Bishop 
of the Altinat church, and engaged to give the said Bishop his 
dinner on the Domenica in Albis, the Sunday, that is, next after 
Easter Day, when the Bishop was used to hold a confirmation 
in this the "mother church," as it was called, of Murano. So 
much is history. Thus the church was first S. Maria di 
Murano; but in 11 25 the Doge Domenico Michiel brought 
hither from Cephalonia the body of S. Donato and the bones 
of the dragon he had slain, and rebuilt the church, which was 
thenceforth known as SS. Maria e Donato. The greater part 
of the church remains of the twelfth century, and in its beauty 
and antiquity, apart from S. Mark's itself, is not to be rivalled 
even in Venice. 

Ruskin, not always to be followed implicitly, but always a 
rigid upholder of such facts as he possessed, tells us that he 
believes the mosaic floor of S. Donato, which is dated 11 40, 
to be the latest thing in it. "I beheve," he says, "that no 
part of the ancient church can be shown to be of more recent 
date than this ; and I shall not occupy the reader's time by 
any inquiry respecting the epochs or the authors of the 
destructive modern restorations; the wreck of the old fabric, 
breaking out beneath them here and there^ is generally dis- 
tinguishable from them at a glance; and it is enough for 
the reader to know that none of these truly ancient fragments 
can be assigned to a more recent date than 1140, and that 
o 



I 



194 VENICE AND YENETIA 

some of them may with probability be looked upon as remains 
of the shell of the first church erected in the course of the 
latter half of the tenth century." 

The church is a large basilica of yellow brick, and both 
from within and from without its most remarkable feature 
is its semicircular apse. Without, it consists of two beautiful 
arcaded stories, the upper balustrated, intersected by a double 
band of coloured marbles sculptured with exquisite delicacy. 
Of these bands Ruskin says : " The feature which is most to 
be noted in this apse is a band of ornament which runs round 
it like a silver girdle, composed of sharp wedges of marble 
preciously inlaid and set like jewels in the brickwork; above 
it there is another band of triangular recesses in the bricks 
of nearly similar shape, and it seems equally strange that all 
the marbles should have fallen from it or that it should have 
been originally destitute of them. . . . The lower band is 
fortunately left in its original state, as is sufficiently proved 
by the curious niceties in the arrangement of its colours, 
which are assuredly to be attributed to the care of the first 
builder." He adds that "the subtlety and perfection of 
artistic feeling in all this are so redundant, that in the building 
itself the eye can rest upon this coloured chain with the 
same kind of delight that it has in a piece of the embroidery 
of Paul Veronese." There can be little doubt that this apse 
is, apart from the balustrade, part of the original earliest 
church. 

Within, the church is vastly disappointing. It is obvious at 
once that it has suffered from innumerable restorations at all 
sorts of different times, and that as an architectural monu- 
ment with any sort of unity it has long since ceased to exist. 
It has, however, several beautiful and many interesting details. 
The pavement, irregular as the surface of the sea itself, is still 
left almost entire, though grievously defaced. It is of very 
great interest, and dates, as has been said, from 1140. But 
it is obvious that what was once a complete and perfect work 
of art, richer than any Eastern carpet, has been broken up in 
too many places, and at too many different periods, for us to 



MURANO 195 

be able to get more than a vision of what it once was from 
what remains. It might seem that whenever a new chapel was 
to be built or a new altar erected the pavement there was ruth- 
lessly destroyed, for men will never understand that in art 
especially all " progress " is not only impossible of achieve- 
ment, but impossible of conception. A work of art is complete 
and perfect, finished from the beginning, or it does not exist. 
If one tries to better it, the result is spoliation, for in " better- 
ing " it one has either made a new thing or one has done 
nothing. It is only in the futile and mortal things of life 
that there can be progress, and it is perhaps that which 
gives us so profound a disgust, so scornful a contempt of 
them. There is no progress in the soul of man. There is 
only revelation of what was there from the beginning. There 
is no progress in nature. What we see to-day our fathers saw, 
or might have seen. But we are enthralled by the clap-trap 
of fools, and " progress " is now their favourite self-deception. 
So it is here, as we see, in the wreck of what was once a very 
beautiful building of the tenth century. The men of the 
twelfth century, in the pride of their ignorance, thought they 
could better it, and they set about this hopeless task instead 
of devoting themselves to a creation of their own. Then came 
in the Renaissance, with all the confidence of a nouveau riche^ 
and decorated the arches with much self-approval, precisely 
as some vulgarian of to-day redecorates an old Tudor house 
that we in our folly have allowed him to buy and he in his 
thinks he can make his own. Though he were as rich as 
all the children of his house of Israel he can do nothing 
there, where he will remain an alien, if he remain at all, tiF 
Doomsday. In just the same way, and indeed with no less 
vulgarity either, the Renaissance appears here as alien as the 
Jew in Hampshire or Kent. We smile at this upholstery, and, 
though in so doing we doubtless forget our own, we do right. 
The stucco roses in squares under the soffits, the egg and arrow 
mouldings in the architraves, gilded, on a ground of spotty 
green and black, with pink-faced cherubs on every key- 
stone — what are they but ridiculous, ridiculous and a shame ? 



190 VENICE AND VENETIA 

Yet, as many a church up and down Italy can bear witness, 
as many a church in Venice will assure us, I hope, always, 
when it began to create anew the Renaissance could achieve 
things as marvellous as the work of the Middle Age. 

It is with joy, then, we discover at last that the fussy and 
vulgar work of the Renaissance here in S . Donato has not 
overwhelmed quite all its original beauty and delight. In the 
shadow of the apse, on a dim field of gold, slowly, gradually, 
we discern a marvellous figure, the Blessed Virgin, who, with 
uplifted, delicate hands, blesses us from very long ago. Her 
robe is deep blue fringed with gold ; for as Sansovino tells us, 
and Ruskin reminds us, "The women, even as far back as 
1 1 GO, wore dresses of blue with mantles on the shoulder, 
which clothed them before and behind." Round the semi-dome 
runs a finely coloured mosaic border j and there in great 
letters all may read — 

"Quos Eva contrivit, pia Virgo Maria redemitj 
Hanc cuncti laudent, qui Christi munere gaudent." 

(Whom Eve destroyed, the pious Virgin Mary redeemed ; 
all praise Her who rejoice in the Grace of Christ.) Thus is 
the church signed as Her own. As for our S. Donato, 
there is an old wooden tablet carved into a rude efifigy of him 
in the lower part of the tribune. 

That exquisitely lovely mosaic is the last thing of much in- 
terest in the church : the frescoes beneath it are of the fifteenth 
century and uninteresting ; but in the left aisle there is a fine 
altarpiece of the Madonna and Child with saints and angels 
by Lorenzo Bastiani ; yet I, for one, though there were nothing 
else in Murano and it were a desert, would be glad to visit it 
so that I might gaze upon that mosaic of the twelfth century, 
might look into that sad face and feel the benediction of those 
uplifted hands. 

And in truth there is little else to see. Murano, once, 
we hear, " a terrestrial paradise — a place of nymphs and 
demigods," is now, in fact, nothing more than a rather dreary 



MURANO 197 

little island full of glass-makers. The decline and fall of the 
Venetian Republic, the decay of Venice herself, has been felt 
more in these outlying places than in the city ; only they 
have largely escaped her vulgarisation and are still the poor 
dwelling-places of the poor who in a certain quietness and 
sincerity live here as best they may. And I think they are 
fortunate and happy. The revival of the glass-making has 
assured them of food and clothing; and if they would be 
content and refrain from the more glaring absurdities of that 
Socialistic anarchy which threatens all of us so wilfully, I 
think there are even many everywhere who might well envy 
them. For their industry is not a newfangled business 
thrust upon them by the pity of the charitable : it is in 
their bones — they are in accord with their ancestors. An 
Englishman, James Howell, writes thus of Murano in a letter 
dated from Venice 30 May, 162 1 : "I was, since I came 
hither, in Murano, a little Island about the distance of Lam- 
beth from London, where Crystal-Glass is made ; and 'tis a 
rare sight to see a whole Street, where on the one side there 
are twenty Furnaces together at work. They say here that 
altho' one should transplant a Glass-Founder from Murano to 
Venice herself, or to any of the little Assembly of Islands 
about her, or to any other part of the Earth besides and use 
the same Materials, the same Workmen, the same Fuel, the 
self same Ingredients every way, yet they cannot make Crystal- 
Glass in that perfection, for beauty and lustre, as in Murano : 
Some impute it to the quality of the circumambient Air that 
hangs o'er the Place which is purify'd and attenuated by the 
concurrence of so many Fires that are in those Furnaces Night 
and Day perpetually, for they are like Vestal-fire which never 
goes out. And it is well known, that some Airs make more 
gratifying Impressions than others. . . ." 

That letter was written about sixteen years after Girolamo 
Magnati di Murano had discovered how to colour glass and 
yet to keep its lustre and transparency. But it is the true art 
of the Murano workmen to which Howell refers in another 
letter of the same year. 



198 VENICE AND VENETIA 

' " The art of Glass -making," he tells his brother, '* is here 
highly valued ; for whosoever be of that Profession are Gentle- 
men ipso facto. . . . When I saw so many sorts of curious 
Glasses made here I thought upon the Compliment which a 
Gentleman put upon a Lady in England, who having five or 
six unruly Daughters, said He never saw in his Hfe such a 
dainty cupboard of Crystal Glasses. The Compliment pro- 
ceeds, it seems, from a Saying they have here, That the first 
handsome Woman that ever was made, was made of Venice 
Glass which implies Beauty, but Brittalness withal, and Venice 
is not unfurnish'd with some of that Mould, for no place 
abounds more with Lasses and Glasses . . . But when I pry'd 
into the Materials and observ'd the Furnaces and Calcinations, 
the Transubstantiations, the Liquefactions that are incident 
to this Art, my thoughts were raised to a higher Speculation ; 
that if this small Furnace-fire hath virtue to convert such a 
small lump of dark Dust and Sand into such a precious clear 
Body as Crystal, surely that Grand Universal Fire which shall 
happen at the Day of Judgment may by its violent ardour 
vitrify and turn to one lump of Crystal the whole Body of the 
Earth ; nor am I the first that fell upon this Conceit." 



XIV 

THE ISLANDS OF BURANO, TOR- 
CELLO, AND S. FRANCESCO 
DEL DESERTO 

THE journey to Murano is very easily made even by 
gondola between the cool of the day and sunset, but 
that to Burano, Torcello, and S. Francesco del Deserto is 
somewhat more formidable. This group of islands, the most 
beautiful and the most interesting in the whole length of 
lagoons, lies some seven miles or so to the north-east of 
Venice. It is true that Burano and Torcello are easily 
reached by steamer — indeed, a boat leaves the Riva every 
day about two o'clock and returns before dusk ; but 
though this may be good enough for the mere tourist, it 
leaves one but little time to see either of the two larger 
islands and none at all to visit S. Francesco. Most people 
will, however, refuse to spend a night in Burano, and in that 
case the only satisfactory way is, I suppose, to take the steamer, 
though even in such circumstances I should prefer to leave 
Venice in a gondola, with two rowers, about eight o'clock or 
earlier, to spend the day among the islands and to row back 
with songs at twilight. For myself, however, I confess 
neither of these plans had any appeal. I first saw Torcello 
from Murano, going by barge and sailing thither, and having 
once set eyes upon it, my whole thought was to return thither 
as soon as possible and to remain there — how often one 

determines on this ! — for ever. I was sick of Venice, that was 

199 



200 VENICE AND VENETIA 

the truth — sick of her noise and her tourists and her modern 
bustle, the fight with the steamers on the Grand Canal, the 
struggle every morning to get by the touts of the shopkeepers 
in the Piazza — sick of the sirens of the factories and the guns 
of the Italian fleet, "L' armata d' Italia Bella e Terribile," 
as the Mayor of Venice called it in his proclamation which 
was placarded all over the city — sick most of all of my own 
disappointment. It was not that I did not feel the beauty 
and charm of the place, but that I was too much crowded upon 
by alien things to enjoy it. Murano was, I soon discovered, 
but a very poor refuge. I knew I could not hold out there 
for long, and I was thinking already of Castelfranco or Burano 
when one summer morning, by chance, I went aboard that 
great barge and we sailed out to Torcello shabbily with a 
cargo of red pots. And when I had seen it I knew that I had 
found a true refuge at last. 

But it is not thus the traveller will, as a rule, come to 
Torcello. He will leave Venice either by steamer or by 
gondola and will come first to Burano, where, if he com^ by 
steamer, he will have half an hour to spend, and then will go 
on to Torcello, whence after another half-hour he will set out 
again for Venice. Such a traveller will have just this much in 
common with us, that he will go, if the tide serve by much 
the same road. 

And that road is a marvel. To begin with, one proceeds 
much as though going to Murano, but when that red and 
green island is left behind, the whole loneliness of the lagoon 
closes upon one, the silence and the glitter and the sunshine 
over the far-stretching waters make a world of their own which 
takes you, for all your modernity, completely to itself, till you 
are confounded with its quietness. It is a world of great and 
insecure distances, of mirage, of fantastic mists and soft com- 
pelling winds, and there are scattered strange and shapeless 
islands covered with golden grass that whispers in the wind 
just above the blue and opalescent waters, that lap upon the 
low shores, where there is no life but the life of birds and 
a human voice is seldom heard. This is the world of the 



BURANO 201 

lagoon, and it seems to stretch away for ever and to form, as 
in fact it does, a strange universe of its own. Sometimes, far 
away across the golden marsh, you will descry a sail red and 
flashing in the sun as it passes down an invisible road to or 
from Burano or Mestre to the sea ; but such a sail you will 
seldom or never speak : it will always remain a mystery to you, 
its road unknown, its business inconceivable. For a road in 
such a place as this seems the last thing you might look for ; 
and yet, as you soon discover, without a road, and that well 
defined, even in a barge you would certainly run ashore. Every- 
where there are vast beacons standing high above the flood, 
and between them great piles bound with iron and often 
bearing the image or the shrine of a saint, the Blessed Virgin, 
S. Mark, S. Clement, or S. Peter, to keep you amid all the 
turnings and windings of the way, turnings that seem purpose- 
less, windings that seem to be part of a game for children, 
in the deep channel and in safety. To the experienced eye 
the road is plainly set by day and lighted too by night, if 
only by the little lamps of the shrines that are set above 
these lonely waters, and the barge, much more the pushful 
and noisy steamer, must keep to that road or go aground. It is 
only the light, adventurous gondola, so individual beside the 
collectivism of the steamer, that can to a large extent neglect 
the deep channel and take to the shallows where the grasses 
float and shine beneath the waters and the fish dart to and 
fro in the shadow of your boat and often truly between your 
fingers. And here it is that the gondolier attains to his full 
height, notation, and majesty. He towers upon the poop 
like a true lord or captain and becomes, in fact, the most 
notable landmark anywhere there; visible for miles across 
the golden marshes, piloting his black argosy to the islands of 
the blest. 

It seems to me, as I look back upon them, that the hours spent 
thus amid the marshes and the islands upon the lagoon were 
by very much the most beautiful and the most precious of all 
those I passed in the Veneto. I found all I hoped for and 
much more than I deserved : songs that are hard to sing, but 



202 VENICE AND VENETIA 

beautiful to hear, old words, old airs, old lullaby s, a clear sky, 
a soft wind, and over all the sun shining in his splendour, 
without which all else is naught. So it was I came to the 
island of Burano, to the island of Baldassare Galuppi, one 
summer morning a little after dawn, where the men are 
fishermen and the women thread the dehcate lace more 
precious than diamonds and pearls. You may see some fine 
antique lace for the altar in the church, the work of long 
ago and of an incredible beauty and loveliness ; but of all the 
Venetian arts, thanks to a great and noble lady, this is the 
least forgotten, so that you may see to-day in Burano in the 
little hands of some dark Buranetta as fine and fair lace in 
the making as ever was contrived of old, and this is the chief 
sight in Burano. Let us rejoice at it. 

Venice, or rather the island of Burano, has been famous for 
its " point " lace since the sixteenth century, and we may 
perhaps fix the date of its origin by the sumptuary laws of 
the Republic in the fifteenth century, when Venice came at 
last to be a city of infinite luxury and wealth. In 1474 the 
Provveditori had proscribed certain jewels, and in 15 14 the 
Republic regulated the toilettes of private individuals as 
jealously as it had already done that of the Dogaressa ; even 
the dresses of the courtesans were subject to law. It seems to 
have been at this period that lace came into fashion and grew 
in favour, till in the seventeeth century the Venetian " point " 
was invented. The character of this " punto di Venezia " 
consists, it seems, in ornaments worked in high relief, 
modelled with art, and disposed in petals superimposed by 
fantastic flowers of thread, rich, and marvellously worked and 
very delicate. All is done with the needle. But long before 
the invention of the "point," Venice was famous for its lace. 
In 1483 lace was sent from Venice to England for the 
Coronation of Richard III, and in the first year of the six- 
teenth century so universal was the interest taken in the craft 
that several books were published upon it: such as "Esemplario 
di lavori " (1529), " Opera nova" (1530), " Gli universali dei bei 
ricami" (1537), and in 1578 we have record of special orders 



BURANO 203 

sent to Venice by Bianca Capello against her marriage with 
Grand Duke Francesco of Tuscany. 

The lace-makers of Venice had always been, since the fif- 
teenth century, under the protection of the Dogaressa ; thus 
Dandola, the wife of Doge Pasquale Malipiero, had protected 
the industry, as did later Morosina Morosini, wife of Doge 
Marino Grimani. It was at this period in the beginning of 
the seventeenth century that the craft was established at 
Burano. At that period the house of Ranieri and Gabrieli 
employed some six hundred persons in the making of lace. 
But in the decadence of the Republic the craft too decayed, 
and in 1845 it was only in the island of Burano that any lace 
was made at all. Twenty-seven years later, in 1872, it was 
here that, thanks to the noble work of the Contessa Adriana 
Marcello and the Principessa Maria Chigi-Giovanelli, the 
industry was revived. It happened in this way. The winter 
of 1872 was cold and stormy, the lagoons were icebound, and 
the unfortunate inhabitants of Burano, who for the most part 
are fishermen, were on the verge of starvation. The Pope and . 
the King of Italy — it was their first effort in common — set 
the example of subscribing to the fund then raised for the 
islanders. By means of concerts and benefit performances at 
the theatres throughout Italy a large sum of money was raised 
— more, in fact, than was actually necessary to supply present 
needs. With the surplus Signor Paolo Fambri, who had 
organized the national subscription, conceived the idea of 
reviving the ancient industry for which Burano had been so 
famous. His plan was enthusiastically taken up by the Con- 
tessa Adriana Marcello and the Principessa Maria Chigi-Gio- 
vanelli, who founded the first school of lace-making at Burano, 
to which later Queen Margherita, then Princess of Piedmont, 
gave her patronage. The Contessa Adriana Marcello especially 
devoted herself to the revival in Burano, for her husband, 
the Conte Alessandro Marcello, had already in the sixties 
attempted this very thing. The chief difificulty then, one of 
money, was removed, but there remained another, the ques- 
tion of the tradition. Did it exist any longer? Did any 



204 VENICE AND VENETIA 

living person, in fact, know how to make Burano point lace ? 
After considerable search an old septuagenarian woman, 
Cencia Scarpariola, was found who still possessed the secret 
and the tradition of the old punto di Burano. Cencia, how- 
ever, though she knew how to make the lace, was quite 
incapable of teaching her craft. The Signora Anna Bellorio 
d' Este, mistress of the Burano school, gave herself up to the 
task of watching Cencia at work, and when she had thus 
learned the art she began to teach eight pupils. The school 
thus founded has never looked back. Whereas in 1880 it was 
able to earn some 34,327 lire, in 1906 it earned 154,802, and 
since 1904 it has established a dependent school at Chioggia, 
the two schools together employing some eight hundred 
makers. These girls are divided into seven classes, one of 
which is entirely composed of married women. A director, 
a mistress, and certain under-mistresses are responsible for 
the school, for the maintenance of discipline, and for the 
teaching of the craft, while three nuns occupy themselves with 
the education of the girls. 

All this and much more the visitor will learn at the school, 
where he may also pass through the workrooms and see the 
girls at work. It was my good fortune to be led through this 
most excellent institution by a nun who had, I think, the most 
beautiful face I have ever seen. And yet it was not really its 
beauty that struck me most, but its serenity and a sort of light 
behind it which transfigured it and gave me a memory of the 
stars. Such people are the salt of the earth, but they are so 
rare that the world nowadays is in danger of losing its savour. 
When I looked at her and thought of her useful life, her 
humble endeavour, and pure, clean soul, and remembered 
the mob of women I had seen not long before at Westminster 
I began to be afraid. We need that face in England ; it is 
too rare there. We have our type beyond compare, it bears 
a child in its arms ; but the pure and splendid woman 
that is denied motherhood we almost lack. When I saw her 
thus armed at all points, humble and serene, but very eager, 
I thought of Florence Nightingale ; but she, I suppose, is out- 



TORCELLO 205 

moded to-day j our young women would rather break a head 
than mend one. 

It is but ten minutes in a gondola, even in what passes here for 
one it is little more, from Burano to the island of Torcello, 
and yet what a whole world of difference between the two islands ! 
Burano to-day is a place of some happiness, it is full of people, 
the children fill the streets, the women sing as they work at 
their lace in the deep old doorways. Even in the quietest 
piazzas there is always a hum of women's voices as they sit 
at their deHcate and beautiful work. And the people are gay 
too, and yet quiet, as though something had indeed passed 
into their lives from those white, intricate threads they turn 
so deftly and so softly into roses. 

In Torcello I sometimes think there is only silence, a 
silence only made more audible by the wind among the 
ruins or the cicale among the vines, and yet there I have 
spent happier days than anywhere else in all the Veneto. It 
is there, as nowhere else in this wide country of fen and plain, 
that I have realized that I am really in Italy. How hard that 
often is in Venice ! — which, I swear, any stranger dropped there 
suddenly from an airship might well take for German if he 
were to judge by the language he would hear. But in Tor- 
cello there is only silence, only silence and freedom, and a 
whole garden of vines, and a couple of old churches, and 
a crazy tall tower. Yet in that garden I have passed many 
a day of happiness, in that old church I have heard Mass with 
the children, on the tall and crazy tower I have waited for 
dawn, I have wished for evening. 

Is it not in such doings, in such remembrances as these, that 
all true happiness abides ? Here in Torcello, at any rate, it is 
secure, abandoned on this ruined island, while in Venice you 
will too often search for it in vain. 

It is true that there is next to nothing to see in Torcello — 
an old and broken church, a ruin and a crazy tower; but 
then what more can you need ? And if you need more are 
there not the waterways that sing and sob night and day, 
calling you, calling you to come and discover a ruined king- 



2o6 VENICE AND YENETIA 

dom, a desert island, and a whole world of forgotten things 
that the marsh guards and keeps from the destroying hands 
of men? 

Yet though Torcello is so silent, and though it has, in fact, 
nothing to show you, if you stay long enough in the evening 
shadow when the tourists are all gone back to Venice on their 
steamer, when the children have finished their evening play, 
when the mothers are all busy with gossip and the goodmen 
are half asleep in their doorways, Torcello will tell you her 
story, and you will understand why the water is always calling 
you to come away, why there is so much silence, why the 
tower is so crazy, and one church broken and the other a 
ruin. 

For Torcello was built in haste, in the midst of flight, 
founded upon fear. When the tall towers of Altinum were 
burned by Attila, when the city went up in flame, and no 
man thought of standing any more, but all men were in full 
flight for the marsh and the sea, they came to this island and 
hastily built what they could, and in memory of their towered 
home called the place Torcello, and from Torcello is Venice 
sprung. You may see it all from that crazy tower, where the 
door swings on its hinges in the evening wind, and no man 
passes by — Altinum, Torcello, Venice, they all lie at your feet. 
Those who came so long ago and built the place had known 
what it was to be utterly dispossessed, to be beaten, to be 
beggared, to be dishonoured, and by barbarians. At last they 
had wondered where they should look for a hiding-place. 
And when by a sort of miracle they came to Torcello they 
rested and built in haste — always in haste — badly and with 
what material they could bring from their ruins, a church 
and a tower that should serve them and remind them a little 
of their home. Such, doubtless, is the origin of S. Fosca 
and the Cathedral of S. Maria founded in the seventh cen- 
tury, such, doubtless, was the beginning of that crazy tower. 
Then, later, a remnant, a little reassured, repaired, but still 
hastily, the Church of St. Mary, and repaired for it the Church 
of S. Fosca as Baptistery, which still lies in ruins beside it. 



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rOKCELLO 



S. FRANCESCO 207 

But why then did these poor folk, in such haste too, build 
two churches ? The legend answers us that when they were 
all come to Torcello, Our Lady and S. Fosca themselves 
revealed to the monk Mauro not only that these churches 
should be built, but where they should stand. 

S. Fosca is small, almost unique, and very lovely even in 
ruin. As for the Cathedral of S. Mary, it is a basilica in the 
early style, supported by columns, and contains still a few 
remnants of an old glory. For on the western wall are six 
rows of twelfth century mosaics, and over the episcopal 
throne in the apse a beautiful Byzantine mosaic of the 
Blessed Virgin, while in the apse at the end of the right 
aisle are others of Christ and His Apostles and the Annun- 
ciation. All these things have been restored, but I think the 
reliefs on the ambones are untouched. 

Such things as these are the ghosts of Torcello, they haunt 
us everywhere, and it is the same in the two tiny and pathetic 
museums. We have not come for these. We have come for 
Torcello herself, for the garden of vines and the wind in the 
rushes, the silence and the voices of the waterways. These 
alone would make Torcello worth any pilgrimage ; yet I have 
loved too the old churches and the crazy tower which were 
friends of mine and are full of peace. 

I should certainly have found Torcello the most satisfying 
place in all the lagoon if I had not almost by chance found 
out S. Francesco del Deserto. I came upon it one morning 
when I had been to Burano to buy some necessary or other, 
and coming back in the very ancient flat-bottomed dinghy that 
I used to explore the islands I spied out this low, long bank 
with its little white convent and dark cypresses — indeed, it 
was the cypresses that took my fancy. I found that I had 
come upon a sanctuary of S. Francis. Here it seems on this 
once quite desolate island he spent a time of recollection 
when he came to Venice. It is said by the friars, of whom 
about thirty remain, that he here repeated too the dear 
episode of Bevagna and preached to the Venetian birds as 
he did to those of Umbria. However this may be, S. Fran- 



2o8 VENICE AND VENETIA 

cesco del Deserto has a miracle of its own, for you are shown 
a tree there which is nothing else but the staff of the Saint which 
he thrust into the ground, when it took root and grew as you 
may see. In the convent the cell of S. Francis is shown, and 
you may spend many a pleasant afternoon in the two cloisters, 
one of which has a fine arcade and a well. 

However, it is almost impossible for one to sleep on the 
island, and so one's visits there come to be always a matter 
of going and returning. One can, however, imagine no more 
delicious spot in which, should you be a friar and love 
solitude, to spend the last superb autumn of your life. 

" O solitudo Beato, 
O Beato solitudo." 



XV 
TO CHIOGGIA 

IF the journey to Burano and Torcello gives one the best 
chance of seeing the lagoon and the great marshy islands 
that together form so characteristic a part of the Veneto and 
so sure a defence of Venice against any enemy from the main- 
land, the journey to Chioggia allows one to examine the great 
lidi and sandbanks that protect the city and the lagoon from 
the sea and to observe two of the three ports which give access 
through these sandbanks to Venice herself. The first of the 
three ports, the Porto di Lido, we have already visited; on 
the way to Chioggia we shall pass the remaining two, namely, 
Porto di Malamocco and Porto di Chioggia. We shall also 
on this journey have the opportunity of examining the murazzi^ 
or artificial fortifications, which the Venetians have built from 
time to time against the rage of the Adriatic, and we shall be 
able to examine more than one little fishing village along that 
lean shore, which in the winter, as seen from Venice, appears 
lost in a mist of foam and the thunder of the great waters. 

But if we are to achieve all this, we shall need more time 
than the daily steamer service properly allows. And, in fact, 
no one who can spare the necessary time should go by steamer 
at all. Let such an one give two days to this excursion. Let 
him take a gondola and two men. Let him start early in the 
morning and rejoice in the sunrise : he will be repaid fourfold. 
On the first day he will visit Pelestrina and Chioggia, on the 

second, returning, Alberoni and Malamocco. This I suppose 
P 209 



210 VENICE AND VENETIA 

to be a counsel of perfection, there will doubtless be but few 
who will free themselves from the steamboat. 

But however one goes, whether by steamer or by gondola, 
whether in two days or in one, the way is much the same. 
You start out past S. Servolo and enter there the great road 
for Malamocco, a broad avenue of pali marking the deep 
water. The first island you pass on the right will be La 
Grazia, the second S. Clemente, after which to the left comes 
the island of S. Spirito, and then again on the right the island 
of Poveglia, not far from the little town of Malamocco on the 
Lido. 

The little island of La Grazia was, like so many of the islands 
of the lagoon, inhabited from very early times by religious. 
The ruins that bear witness to their sojourn here are, however, 
very few and scanty : there only remains an ancient hospice of 
pilgrims, a cloister of hermits whose successors were the monks 
of the Congregation of S. Girolamo da Fiesole. But about 
1439 some fugitives brought hither from besieged Constanti- 
nople an image of the Blessed Virgin that was said to be the 
work of S. Paul, and the island, which had till then been 
known as S. Maria della Cavana, was renamed by the people 
S. Maria della Grazia. The Gerolamini were, however, sup- 
pressed in 1668 and the Republic entered into their inheritance. 
Not for long, however, for within a year a certain Bianca 
Spinelli, who was betrothed to Lodovico Contenti, on the 
eve of her marriage persuaded her lover to release her from 
her vows in order that she might offer herself to God as a nun 
under the Rule of St. Francis. This she did with certain of 
her friends, and they were allowed to take up their abode in 
the cloister of the Grazia. In 18 10, however, the cloister and 
the church of the Grazia were ruined, and a little later there 
was built in their place b, polveriera, a powder magazine, which 
was blown up in the siege of 1849. Thus was the house of 
S. Francis turned into a storage for war. But S. Francis has 
come to his own after all, for to-day the island of La Grazia is 
a hospital for consumptives.^ 

^ See Molmenti e Mantovani, " Le Isole della Laguna Veneta " (Bergamo, 
1910). 



TO CHIOGGIA 211 

We have already spoken of the island of S. Clemente. 
The next island is passed on the left ; it is that of S. Spirito. 
It too was the home of monks : at first of Augustinians, then 
in 1409 for a few years of the Cistercians, but in 1429 it came 
back to the Augustinians and produced that Andrea Bon- 
dumiero who was first Patriarch of Venice. He did not 
forget his old home. He began to build, and presently 
Jacopo Sansovino erected there a very noble church ; Palma 
Vecchio and Titian painted pictures for it. But in 1656 the 
monks were suppressed and their treasures taken to Venice 
and placed in the church of S. Maria della Salute.^ The 
island remained ruined and desolate till 1672, when the Senate 
gave it to those Friars Minor who had fled to Venice from 
Crete and the cruelty of the Turk. All went well then with 
Santo Spirito till the universal robber, Napoleon, appeared and 
in 1806 expelled the friars and filled their old convent with 
marines. Since then it has, like La Grazia, become a powder 
magazine. 

To the left of S. Spirito, under the Lido, stands the little 
island of Lazzaretto Vecchio. This island was of old the site 
of a church dedicated to S. Maria di Nazaret and of a hospice 
for pilgrims to the Holy Land. Later it was converted by the 
Republic into a hospital for the plague-stricken : this in 
the thirteenth century, and was probably the first public 
hospital of the sort established in Europe, and probably 
gave the name of Nazaretto, which became Lazzaretto, to 
all similar institutions. On the fall of the Republic the 
Lazzaretto was transferred to the island of Poveglia, to 
which we come just before the town of Malamocco on the 
Lido comes in sight. 

Poveglia stands forth as very valorous in the defeat of the 
Frankish attempt on Venice under Pepin in 809. Pepin, the 
son of Charlemagne, who had jealously watched the rise of 
the lagoon communities from the mainland, at last resolved to 
attack them and to make good his claim of allegiance as king 
of Italy. He got a fleet together at Ravenna^ and sailing up 
* See supra, p. 146. 



212 VENICE AND VENETIA 1^ 

the coast took Chioggia and Pelestrina and approached Mala- 
mocco, then the capital, to overthrow it also. But before he 
could do so the Doge and the Venetian people transferred 
themselves and their government to the Rialto, so that when 
Pepin took Malamocco he found it deserted, save for an old 
woman who had refused on any consideration to leave her 
cottage, and was resolved to save Venice. This she is said j 
to have done by counselling Pepin to build a wooden I 
bridge all the way from Malamocco to Rialto. This Pepin ' 
achieved, but when he took his army across it the horses, 
fearful of the water, cast them all into the sea. The more 
trustworthy account of the affair, however, shows us the heavy 
Prankish boats aground in the shallow lagoon and the people | 
of Poveglia cutting throats at their ease. Nothing, how- i 
ever, remains that is ancient on the island of Poveglia, for 
during the war of Chioggia, when Genoa so nearly caught 
Venice napping, everything was destroyed by order of the 
Republic and the inhabitants were transported to the contrada 
di S. Agnese in Venice.^ All that we see to-day on this green 
island is rows of Lazar huts. 

We now slowly approach the town of MalamocGO. The 
vast sandbank of which it is the capital, and which I call the 
Lido, is now one long, lean island washed on the east by the 
Adriatic and on the west by the green, sluggish, shallow waters 
of the lagoon. It stretches from the Porto di Lido without a 
break to the Porto di Malamocco, some miles south of the 
town of that name. I call this sandbank the Lido, for that is 
what it is ; but officially it is only the northern part of it, from 
the Porto di Lido to the Forte Quattro Fontane, which bears 
that name, the southern part from the Fort to the Porto di 
Malamocco being called Littorale di Malamocco. This part 
is, in fact, only about a quarter of a mile wide till it swells 
into the headland of Alberoni. This island from Porto di 
Lido to Porto di Malamocco is the first of the three vast sand- 
banks which guard the lagoon ; it is also naturally the strongest 
and firmest. To the south of it lies another long, narrow 
^ Molomenti e Mantovani, v.s,, p. 40. 



TO CHIOGGIA 213 

sandbank called Littorale di Pelestrina, but this like the third, 
Littorale di Sotto Marina, is guarded from the inroads of the 
sea artificially by vast murazzi, great terraces of boulders erected 
in the end of the eighteenth century at a cost of near a million 
sterling. 

But to return to Malamocco. The name is very familiar to 
us in early Venetian history,^ but the town we see, has very 
little to do with the island which then bore its name. That 
island has been swallowed by the sea. It met with this fate 
in the midst of an earthquake in the first years of the twelfth 
century, and then its bishopric perished together with its 
famous monasteries and churches of S. Rocco, S. Leo, SS. 
Leonardo ed Erasmo, and S. Cipriano. The new Malamocco, 
the town we see to-day, and of which we have mention in 1 107, 
was self-governed by its own Doge, and after 1 139 by a Podesta. 
To-day it makes a part of the Commune of Venice and has 
about 3,000 inhabitants, three churches — S. Antonio, S. VitOj 
and the parish church of Ognissanti. The Palazzo del Podesta 
still remains on the Piazza, a building of the fifteenth century, 
and all that even Molmenti can find to say of a place which has 
inherited a name so glorious is that it is famous for its vegetables 
and especially for its melons ! 

It is after leaving Malamocco that one generally comes upon 
a fleet of those fishing boats which, with their golden sails, 
blazoned with the Lion and the Book, are the pride and joy 
of the lagoons, and the only proper means for their explora- 
tion. Many a happy day, many a quiet star-enraptured night 
have I spent aboard them in the company I love best in all 
Venetia. 

After leaving Malamocco one soon finds oneself off Forte 
Alberone, and it is here in the road of Porto di Malamocco 
that the great battleships and cruisers of Italy lie when they 
are in these waters for manoeuvres. Beyond the Porto lies 
the Littorale di Pelestrina, the second of those long but 
lean islands that keep out the sea. The capital is Pele- 
strina, and there and in the two hamlets of Portosecco and 

' See supra, p. 12. 



214 VENICE AND YENETIA 

S. Pietro live some 7,000 people. Pelestrina is a poor place 
with almost nothing to recommend it, save its facilities for 
bathing, which are here to be had at far less cost than at the 
Lido. The old monastery of S. Antonio has been turned into 
a sort of bathing establishment, and here in summer the poorer 
sort of tourist comes to enjoy himself. 

Pelestrina has decayed with the decay of the Republic, 
to whom of old she furnished many sailors. Her sons now 
are wholly given up to fishing — a hard life — or to agriculture, 
a harder almost in a spot so barren as this. The women are 
engaged in lace-making as they sit in their doorways talking 
and keeping a mother's eye upon the games of the children, 
as splendid and joyful a little people as is to be found anywhere 
in Italy. And altogether they with their dear, tousled heads, 
bright eyes, and flashing teeth, their exaggerated small ges- 
tures, and their vivid torn clothes, make a picture more joyful 
than one might suppose. 

The only work of art worth seeing on the Littorale di 
Pelestrina is not the Church of Ognissanti, thouglf that is gay 
enough any Sunday morning, but that part of the sea coast 
which stretches away for four chilometri behind the church 
and which was strengthened and rebuilt in 1618 for the pro- 
tection of Venice, the last great work of the Republic, called 
I Murazzi. This vast work, renewed from time to time, 
boulder laid upon boulder, to defend the unstable sand that 
the city might not be overwhelmed by her husband the 
Adriatic, bears the following inscription: — 

UT SACRA AESTUARIA 

URBIS ET LIBERALIS SEDES 

PERPETUUM CONSERVENTUR 

COLOSSEAS MOLES 

EX SOLIDO MARMORE 

CONTRA MARE POSUERE 

CURATORES AQUARUM 

AN. SAL. MDCCLI 

AB URBE COND. MCCLXXX. 



TO CHIOGGIA 215 

And so setting out from Pelestrina and sailing across the 
deep mouth of the Porto we come to Chioggia. 

Chioggia is an island, a small island entirely covered by the 
town on the verge of the mainland where the now canalized 
Brenta pours into the sea. It may be said to be the capital of 
the fishing towns of the lagoon, for it is certainly the largest, 
and the whole of its energy might seem to be given entirely 
to the business of the sea. Its picturesque fishing boats crowd 
the molo and the little harbour and, packed like herrings in a 
barrel, stretch quite through the little town from end to end of 
it, for it is traversed, as Venice is, by a grand canal, only here it 
is full of boats, so that one may cross it almost anywhere dry- 
shod. The structure of Chioggia is indeed simplicity itself. 
Here is an island traversed from end to end by a great, wide 
and half-deserted street, called since 1866 Corso Vittorio 
Emanuele. Parallel to it runs the grand canal of which I have 
spoken, called II Canale Vena, and this is covered by nine 
bridges of stone. From these nine bridges either way run the 
smaller streets across the island to the lagoon on the east, called 
Canale di S. Domenico, to that on the west, called Canale Lom- 
bardo. So regular a plan seems astonishing in so old and so 
dilapidated a place as Chioggia, and, in fact, it robs it of a cer- 
tain picturesqueness which one certainly expects to find. But 
what Chioggia lacks in the way of winding streets and shadowy 
palaces is wholly made up to her by the fishing boats, which 
with their many-coloured sails, their tall masts, and singing 
ropes seem to bring the sea itself into the place and to make 
of it nothing more than a large ship floating on the basin of 
the port and about to set out for Alexandria on some quest of 
the Middle Age. Indeed, the fishermen, the fishing boats, the 
fish market along the Vena are by far the most interesting 
people and things in Chioggia. 

Of old Chioggia depended very largely on her salt industry 
for a living. She depends still upon the sea, but her salt 
business has gone, while her fish markets remain. And since 
the revival of lace- making at Burano the Chioggiotte have 
been largely employed in this craft also. These women are 



2i6 VENICE AND YENETIA 

often of very considerable beauty, and seem rather than their 
sisters at Venice to have preserved the Venetian type and the 
Venetian character. And it is much the same with the men, 
who appear taller and stronger than the modern Venetians. 
Perhaps this was always so. Certain it is that we hear that 
the great masters of the Venetian school of painting used often 
to come to Chioggia to choose their models, as the Italian and 
foreign painters do to-day. 

But there are other sights to be had in Chioggia beside the 
people and the fishing boats and the town at large. In the 
Church of S. Domenico, across the Vigo Bridge, there is a 
fine picture by Carpaccio of S. Paul, his drawn sword in his 
right hand, the book of his Epistles open in his left, the last 
work, as is supposed, of the great painter. The picture is 
signed Victor Carpathius Venetus pinxit MDXX. In the same 
church, over the High Altar, is a poor work by Tintoretto of 
Christ with S. Thomas Aquinas and other saints. 

In the Church of S. Andrea, in the Corso, is a fine work by 
Palma Vecchio of Christ Crucified, while about the Cross 
stand the Blessed Virgin, S. John, S. Luke, and S. Daniele. 

The Duomo of S. Maria was rebuilt in 1633 by Longhena. 
It, however, contains nothing of much interest, unless it be 
three reliquaries of the fourteenth century. 

But what delighted me most among the treasures of 
Chioggia was an ancient altarpiece conserved in the Church 
of S. Martino, a fine old brick building with an octagonal 
lantern and mighty campanile standing before a dilapidated 
piazza in the Corso. This ancona stands over the High 
Altar, and consists of ten panels with three predella panels. In 
the midst is set Our Lady, enthroned with her little Son, and 
on either side two saints, above S. Martin divides his cloak 
with a beggar, and on either side are set four scenes from his 
life, while higher still we see the Crucifixion with Our Lady 
and S. John beside the cross, and, above all, a half figure 
of a saint with a book in his hand. In the side panels 
here are two angels with censers and four more scenes 
from the life of S. Martin. In the predella are five half 



TO CHIOGGIA 217 

figures of saints. This fine work by some unknown painter 
is dated 1349. 

S. Martino must have been built about the time of or not 
long after the war of Chioggia, which, as we have seen, was 
brought to an end by the victory of Venice over the Genoese 
fleet in 1392. Unhappily, the Palazzo Vecchio we see, replaced 
a building dating a hundred and sixty years before that war. 
But the huge granary of Chioggia, built in 1322, still remains 
in the midst of the Piazza, though it has suffered restoration, 
and is now the main fish market. 

To the tourist I feel sure Chioggia will seem a very poor 
place. He will probably grudge the day he has spent in going 
to see her; but to an artist, or even to a more leisurely 
traveller, though no one will compare her with Torcello, the 
best of all, she will seem, nevertheless, something to be thank- 
ful for. Happy is he who finds himself content with her and 
in a mood to remain. For him there remain many pleasant 
and consoling sights : in spring the procession of the Crocefisso 
that passes over the Ponte di Vigo. In summer the Benedic- 
tion before the Church of S. Andrea, when all the Chioggiotti 
and Chioggiotte are dressed in their best, in dresses peculiar 
to Chioggia, and the old days and the old ways seem still to 
be with us ; and, indeed, when the wind of evening pours 
over the lagoon, blue as a cold sapphire in the twilight, when 
the girls are singing on the molo and the fishermen answer 
from their boats coming in from the sea, and the sky is 
trembling with the few summer stars, I, for one, could wish to 
remain in Chioggia always amid these simple and human folk 
who have been my friends. 



XVI 
TO TREVISO 

THERE is a weariness of the sea. Yes, for all the 
fading beauty of Venice, the pure delight of the 
lagoons, the silence and loneliness of the islands, in time one 
grows weary of them, and is homesick for the hills ; one 
remembers the long roads that lead on for ever in the sunshine, 
one regrets the vineyards and the gardens of olives, not this 
waste of island-sprinkled water but the firm earth is the heart of 
our desire. To be weary with the length of the way, to set out 
where the road leads, these are the inalienable needs of a man, 
and how can Venice ever satisfy them ? For all her beauty and 
for all her delight, she comes at last to be a kind of prison 
from which there is no visible escape. The waters lie every- 
where about her, and the farthest of her islands is but a cell in 
a fortress not made with hands, where she lies now in durance, 
and of which she has lost the key. For in a very real sense 
she is caught at last in her own trap. Once she was sufficient 
for herself, and in the midst of her natural bastion, the 
lagoon, she was able for many centuries to defy all comers. 
But now life has departed from her, she is derelict in the 
shallow sea, and is wrecked on the shoals that were once her 
protection, and there is no one who comes to her and remains 
with her but at last becomes aware that he is a prisoner, that 
he, too, like any wretched captive, must go round and round, 
that there is no free way out. Then it is that he knows that 
he must ere long take ship or deliver himself to the train and 
escape, for it is escape, and leave these strange and shallow 

waters, and set foot upon the firm and stable earth whence he 

218 



TO TREYISO 219 

is sprung. It may be a few weeks, it may be a long series of 
years, that bring this home to him, for men are strangely 
different, and in Venice only this is sure, that he who is not 
Venetian born will know that he is a prisoner at last. Then 
when the narrow ways grow irksome, when the lagoon seems 
only a desert, something reveals itself suddenly in the heart, 
and the stranger is restless to be gone. Perhaps it is in the 
sweet o' the year that this comes to him at last, and a memory 
of spring in the world he knew, a world of fields and hedge- 
rows, of valleys and hills, of corn and wine and oil, of the 
sentient and awakening world, raises rebellion in his heart, 
and the barren sea seems the way of a fool, for the whole wide 
world is calling to him, and there is nothing that can prevent 
him in finding her. Certainly it was the spring that broke for 
me the spell of Venice. I dreamed of the highways, I desired 
the hills, when the sweet of the year broke over the valleys 
red and white, when the green bud began to appear, when the 
wind came softly from the south, and the birds were come 
from over the sea. So I set out. 

One night on the Fondamenta Nuova I found a barge for 
the mainland. I made friends, I went aboard, and by dawn 
my foot pressed terra firma. I was in Mestre, on the road to 
Treviso. 

Of that road who can say enough? It leads across the 
plain towards the mountains, it leads through many a pleasant 
village, and all the way is green with the new sprung corn and 
red and white with almond blossom, and whispering with the 
south wind among the vines, among the twisted fig-trees and 
unchanging cypresses. I breakfasted in Mogliano, a brief 
handful of houses ; I lunched in Preganziol, and, going 
slowly, for I was weary after the winter, I came into Treviso 
at nightfall, into Treviso with its memories of Venice. 

Treviso, which ever wears an aspect so smiling and so 
youthful, is nevertheless a city of very ancient foundation, 
far older than Venice, which is, indeed, the latest born of all 
those towns which came at last to owe her life and allegiance. 
In the time of the Empire Treviso — Tarvisium as it was called 



220 VENICE AND YENETIA 

— was a prosperous and important place. With the coming of 
Attila, however, it, like all the cities of Venetia, fell into ruin. 
That barbarian entered Italy, crossing the Alps in 452, and, 
as we have seen, at once laid siege to Aquileia, with an 
innumerable host. Unskilled as he was in the methods of 
conducting a regular siege, he was yet able with the enforced 
assistance of his many prisoners and the impressed provincials 
of the country places to make a very formidable assault upon 
the strong walls of that great city with battering-rams, 
movable turrets, and engines that threw darts and fire. 
Aquileia was at that time not only one of the richest and 
most populous of the cities of this coast, but it was also the 
most formidable fortress on the frontier. It made the most 
splendid and the most heroic resistance to the Hun, who 
consumed three months ineffectually before it, and was, 
indeed, on the verge of starvation and about to raise the 
siege, when a mere chance gave him the city. " As he rode 
round the walls," says Gibbon, "pensive, angry, and dis- 
appointed, he observed a stork preparing to leave her nest in 
one of the towers, and to fly with her infant family towards the 
country. He seized with the ready penetration of a statesman 
this trifling incident which chance had offered to superstition, 
and exclaimed in a loud and cheerful tone that such a domestic 
bird, so constantly attached to human society, would never 
have abandoned her ancient seats unless those towers had 
been devoted to impending ruin and solitude. The favour- 
able omen inspired an assurance of victory ; the siege was 
renewed and prosecuted with fresh vigour ; a large breach was 
made in the part of the wall from whence the stork had taken 
her flight, and the Huns mounted to the assault with irresis- 
tible fury ; and the succeeding generation could scarcely 
discover the ruins of Aquileia." 

With the fall and ruin of Aquileia the frontier lay open. 
Attila apparently crossed the Piave out of Friuli ^ into Venetia 

^ I hope to deal with Friuli in another book. I intended to include it 
in this volume, but the whole of the frontier province is so rich in interest 
that it deserves a volume to itself. 



TO TREYISO 221 

proper, and the first city in his way was Tarvisium. This 
also he overthrew, and marched on to Padua, which he left a 
heap of stones before he swung westward to destroy the inland 
towns, Vicenza, Verona, and Bergamo, and so to Milan and 
Pavia, which submitted without resistance. This march of 
utter destruction is, I imagine, without parallel in the history 
of Europe. It was like a flight of locusts ; before it was 
plenty and civilization, behind it starvation, anarchy, and 
barren ruin. Everything went down, not only the cities, 
but man and his work of a thousand years. Venetia re- 
turned to a state of barbarism — Venetia which had been one 
of the richest and most vigorous provinces of the Empire. 
As Attila himself boasted, the grass never grew on the spot 
where his horse had trod. 

What exactly was the fate of Tarvisium during the ensuing 
centuries we do not know. The Dark Ages lay over Europe, 
and, as has been said, though Charlemagne lifted the veil for a 
moment and assured the world of the sun, there were many 
years to pass away after that splendid and heroic coronation 
in S. Peter's Church, before Europe could again be said to be 
a living thing. It is, however, part of the irony of history, 
and also but another proof that none of us really knows what 
he is doing, that in his destructive and incredible march 
Attila may be said to have founded Venice, the city and the 
State which was at length to renew the life of the old Roman 
Province of Venetia, and to rebuild, perhaps on more secure 
foundations, the civilization of Rome and of Europe in this 
corner of the Empire which had suffered more severely than 
any other in that never to be forgotten disaster. 

When Treviso next appears upon the stage of history very 
nearly a thousand years had passed away since Attila laid her 
low. Venice, which had grown out of the ruin of Aquileia 
and Altinum, was by the year 1339 about to become mistress 
of the sea. She had disposed of the Dalmatian pirates, she 
had broken Constantinople, she was to strew the beaches of 
Chioggia with the wrecks of the galleys of Genoa. Her trade 
was paramount in the East, and her many possessions through 



222 VENICE AND YENETIA 

the Levant glittered in the cap of her Doge like jewels. She 
had become by dint of her enterprise, her virility, and her 
hard fighting the emporium of Europe. Yet in that year 
1339 she was but a kind of fortress in the sea, she held 
nothing in the ancient province whose name she bore. This, 
which had for long been her salvation, had come now to be 
her gravest danger. The old weapon that had always been 
used against Venice was the threat of starvation; this, she 
knew, would be used again, and with the consolidation of Italy 
of the various provinces of Italy, with ever-increasing success. 
She could not grow corn in the lagoons, she must import it 
from the mainland. And, moreover, that mainland, so hazily 
visible across the shallow waters, had lately become of vast 
importance in this also, that the various powers there, small 
princelings or great States, were always able to shut the 
passes of the Alps against her commerce, so that she under- 
stood what it was to face both starvation and commercial ruin. 
With the sea almost in her hands, but with Genoa unbeaten, 
she suddenly turned her attention to this, and, like every 
other problem that was presented to her before inward 
decadence and exterior revolutions in the conditions of Europe 
brought her to nothing, she solved it. 

Nor was the solution, which she adopted so successfully, any 
new idea. It was but a revival of an old intention that had 
always lain in her soul, but that till now she had not been 
forced to carry out with all her strength. Already in 996 she 
had secured a port and a market-place on the Sile, which runs 
through Treviso, and of old flowed into the lagoon at or near 
Altinum. In 1142 she had for the first time undertaken a 
war on terra firma to keep the Brenta open for her merchant- 
men. In 1240 she had fought on the mainland to maintain 
her commercial rights in Ferrara. The second war of Ferrara 
in 1308 gives us, according to Mr. Horatio Brown, "the 
earliest indications of a distinctly aggressive land policy." 
Before then, certainly, Genoa, we must remember, had defeated 
Pisa, and was thus become tremendously formidable ; at least 
as formidable as Germany is to us to-day. It is then, in 1308 



TO TREVISO 223 

that we find the Doge, Gradenigo, advocating a poHcy of 
territorial expansion ; but I think it must always have been 
the creed of the commercial adventurers, the true heroes of 
Venice as of England. The Closing of the Great Council 
gave them their opportunity ; the few, as ever, drove the 
many, the futile democracy was demolished, and Venice rose 
up, ready to face even the Pope in the patriotic cause. In 
1308 war was declared, though the Pope, in vain, placed the 
city under an interdict. 

At first Venice was not successful. The Venetian garrison 
in the Rocca of Ferrara was put to the sword ; she made 
peace, and bought her rights again from the Ferrarese. But 
what she had failed to attain by war, the security of her trade, 
she, restless, sought at once to achieve by treaty. In 131 7 
we find her making treaties with Milan, Brescia, Bologna, 
Como, and for the political cause of all this we look to Genoa. 
We hear of her goods in Flanders and in England. Yet more 
and more the patriotic policy of her merchant adventurers was 
forced upon her by circumstances, and this because it was the 
way of life. 

Those circumstances were indeed formidable enough. On 
the sea the long Genoese campaigns were yet to be fought and 
won ; on the mainland the growing trade of Venice, the com- 
mercial treaties she had made brought her face to face with 
the military powers of Venetia and of Lombardy, with the 
Scala of Verona, the Carrara of Padua, the Visconti of Milan. 
Of these the first to be faced were the Scala of Verona. The 
greatest member of this great house, Can Grande himself, had 
by 1328 become master of Vicenza and Padua. In the 
following year Mastino della Scala took Feltre, Belluno, and 
Treviso. What did this mean for Venice ? Open any map 
of Northern Italy, and it will at once be obvious that such a 
move on the part of Verona gave the lords of that city an 
absolute command of the westward trade of the lagoons. 
Venice was completely hemmed in on the mainland. Padua 
and Vicenza, supported by Verona, held her immediately ; on 
the north Treviso, backed by the Piave, held the way, while 



224 VENICE AND VENETIA 

Feltre and Belluno closed the mountains against her. This 
action on the part of the Scala struck at the very existence of 
Venice, for her wealth was dependent on the markets of the 
west and north, the roads to which these cities held. For 
every ounce of merchandise she sent forth she must hence- 
forth pay Mastino della Scala tribute — an ever-growing tribute. 
Venice replied at once by cutting off his salt supply, but that 
was of little effect. Her true reply was war, and she at once 
prepared to make it. And here, again, Venetian history 
is very like that of England. There was, we read, a party 
in Venice which strongly opposed the war. Such creatures 
seem even then to have been the curse of their country. 
Apparently a Pro-Scala Doge was in power, but either cir- 
cumstances were too strong for him or the Venetians had a 
better and a readier way of dealing with their traitors than 
we have with ours. We do not read that the Doge was 
allowed to escape from the angry citizens in the disguise 
of one of the city police^ but we do read that war 
was declared and Venice saved, and that from this time 
Venice set herself to found a dominion on the mainland, a 
dominion which for good government, happiness, and the 
administration of justice had no equal in any other part of 
Italy, or perhaps of Europe. 

The Doge had bolstered up his counsel of non-resistance by 
the assertion that the Republic had no army and would be 
compelled to employ mercenaries. In this he was, as it 
proved, entirely at sea. Venice raised a native army from 
her own sons between the ages of twenty and sixty years; 
but her real triumph was one of diplomacy. For now that 
she showed her readiness and capacity to fight, she was able 
to find allies in the Florentines, the Rossi of Parma, the 
Visconti of Milan, and the Gonzaga of Mantua ; and, as it 
proved, Rossi of Parma alone was so formidable an enemy, 
that Mastino della Scala sought terms of Venice. In this 
business he employed Marsilio di Carrara, his governor in 
Padua, a member of the family which the Scala had displaced 
in 1328. Why he chose such an unproved and dangerous 



TO TREVISO 225 

instrument we do not know. What we know is that Carrara 
turned traitor and came to secret terms with the Doge. He 
agreed to make Venice mistress of Padua on condition that he 
himself was established there as Signore. Scala was undone. 
Visconti was all but in Brescia, which Scala in vain tried to 
relieve, only to learn that in his absence Rossi of Parma had 
actually taken Padua and that Venice was in possession of 
it and the House of Carrara restored. Then Brescia fell. 
Mastino della Scala sued for peace, which was given him in 
1339 on the following conditions so far as Venice was con- 
cerned. The Republic was to have and to hold as part of her 
dominion the cities and territories of Treviso and Bassano, 
and to recover her original commercial rights in Vicenza and 
Verona. 

What did this mean to Venice? It meant three things. 
In the first place Treviso gave her the road from the sea to 
the mountains, while Bassano gave her the command and 
control of a great pass over the Alps into the Germanics. In 
the second place it gave her a vast corn-growing district and 
a fine pasture land, so that her food supply was assured so 
long as she could hold what she had won. In the third place 
it founded her dominion on the mainland. 

Treviso, then, holds a very important place in the history of 
Venice, and its acquisition marks the beginning of a new 
period. Yet I suppose that no one visiting this prosperous 
little town of 33,000 inhabitants, the capital of a province and 
see of a bishop, would realize as much to-day as he passed up 
and down the narrow arcaded streets and in and out of the 
great bare churches. Yet this, perhaps, would strike him, that 
Treviso was the birthplace of three great painters of the 
Venetian school — Lorenzo Lotto, Rocco Marconi, and Paris 
Bordone. And in noting this fact he would be right. For 
Venice gained more than security, more than a permanent 
food supply, more than a free trade route by the war which 
ended in the annexation of this territory. She gained the 
energy and genius of its people ; for this follows as the night 
the day, that to him that hath shall be given. Had Venice 
Q 



226 VENICE AND VENETIA 

followed the craven and provincial policy of her Doge, she 
would have lost more than those material advantages for 
which she waged her war ; she would have lost the new 
spiritual energy and strength which she thus gathered to 
herself. She, too, was of the number of those, and they 
include us all, who do not know what they are doing. 

If we set out to explore Treviso, as I suppose most travellers 
do, from the Railway Station, we shall first cross the Canal 
Polveriera, an artificial branch of the river Sile. We thus 
enter the city by the Barriera Vittorio Emanuele, and passing 
through this Borgo and crossing the river itself, we enter the 
city proper by the Via Vittorio Emanuele. The walls which 
on all sides, save this which is guarded by the river, surround 
the city and are flanked by moats or canals are the work of 
Fra Giocondo, one of the most famous engineers and architects 
of the Renaissance, born in Verona. They date from the end 
of the fifteenth century. Following the Via Vittorio Emanuele 
across another canal — a canal which passes through the whole 
city — we presently come to a little piazza, out of which on the 
left the Via Venti Settembre leads into the Piazza dei Signori. 
If we were to judge of Treviso by the names of its chief streets, 
we might think that it was scarcely fifty years old. The Piazza 
dei Signori, however, tells another story. Here stand the 
Palazzo Pubblico, and behind the Palazzo Pubblico the 
Monte di Pieta. We pass out of the Piazza by the Via 
Calmaggiore on the left, which presently brings us straight to 
the Duomo. 

The Cathedral of S. Peter, chiefly a building with fine 
domes by Tullio Lombardo in the fifteenth century, has a 
fine Renaissance portico, on whose steps are two ancient 
porphyry lions. Within, by the first pillar on the left, is a 
statue of S. Sebastian by Lorenzo Bregno, a work of the 
early sixteenth century. It is at the second altar on 
the right, however, that we come upon a work by one of 
those three painters born in Treviso which are part of 
the glory of the school of Venice. It is a Nativity by 
Paris Bordone. 



TO TREVISO 227 

Paris Bordone was born at Treviso in 1500 and died in 
Venice in 1570. And though his education as a painter was 
Venetian, the provincial shows itself clearly enough in his 
works in a certain personal way he has of seeing things and 
expressing them for himself. Even his colour is not altogether 
Venetian. That delicate rosy tinge in his flesh, the purple 
and shot tints of his draperies, might seem to be inventions of 
his own, as are certainly the strangely crumpled folds of his 
draperies. The greatest of his works, the Fisherman Pre- 
senting the Ring of S. Mark to the Doge, remains, as is meet 
and right, in Venice ; but here in Treviso we have several 
of his works, among them this Nativity in the Duomo, and 
Madonna with SS. Sebastian and Jerome, with some Gospel 
scenes, and a small picture in the same church, together with 
a picture in the Gallery. 

By the second pillar is a relief of the Visitation by one of 
the Lombardi, and over the third altar on the left a fine work 
by Francesco Bissolo of S. Justina, S. John the Baptist, and 
S. Catherine with donor. 

Close by is the Renaissance Cappella del S. Sagramento, to 
the left of the choir, by Lorenzo and Battista Bregno of Verona. 
In the choir itself is the fine tomb of Bishop Zanetto by the 
Lombardi and some modern frescoes. The Cappella Mal- 
chiostro, to the right of the choir, contains the terra-cotta bust 
of the founder, Broccardo Malchiostro, who died in 1520, and 
some frescoes of that date by Pordenone and Pomponio 
Amalteo, showing the influence of Michelangelo's work in the 
Sixtine Chapel in the Vatican. In the antechapel, too, is an 
interesting work — a Madonna by Girolamo da Treviso, a 
painter of the Paduan school, born here in the fifteenth 
century. This altarpiece, which has considerable merit, is 
dated 1487, and would seem to show, for all the Paduan 
education, a Bellinesque influence. The great treasure of 
this chapel, however, and indeed of the city of Treviso, is 
the picture of the Annunciation by Titian which it possesses. 
This fine picture was painted for Canon Malchiostro, the 
founder of the chapel, before 151 7, when Titian brought 



228 VENICE AND YENETIA 

the finished picture with him to Treviso.^ No one, I think, 
who has ever seen this picture has been satisfied with it. To 
begin with, the donor insisted, apparently, on being included 
in the scene. The result is that here we have an impossible 
situation presented to us. We see a priest lurking behind a 
pillar, eavesdropping, while Gabriel delivers his message. 
Nothing could be more revolting. Whether Titian himself felt 
this or not, who can say ? But he painted Gabriel as coming 
in with so much haste, and altogether in so great a confusion 
and so rudely, that we understand why the book has slipped 
from Mary's hand and why she lays that hand as though in 
protest upon her gentle breast and is all confused. We have 
only to remember such masters as Lorenzo Monaco, Simone 
Martini, Fra Angelico, and Filippo Lippi, and what they have 
made for all time of this scene — something spellbound, some- 
thing as wonderfully lovely as the Alma Redemptoris Mater — 
to be altogether disgusted by this vulgarity with a priest for 
listener. 

In the sacristy close by we have something that better 
contents us : a very interesting picture of a procession in the 
Piazza del Duomo by a pupil of Paris Bordone. 

One other work of Titian's, though sadly faded, remains in 
Treviso. I mean the figure of Christ which he painted on the 
facade of the Scuola del Santissimo, adjoining the Cathedral, 
when he came to Treviso in 15 17. This was a representation 
of the risen Christ ascending triumphantly with the banner of 
victory in His hand. Titian was more than once in Treviso 
about this time. In 15 19 he there gave his opinion as an 
expert in favour of his friend Pordenone in a dispute that 
painter had with his employer, who had refused to pay for the 
painting of a fagade, and later he wanted to buy a quantity of 
land in the neighbourhood from the monks of S. Benedetto. 

His work, however, is not to be found in the little Galleria 
Comunale in the Borgo Cavour, which is reached from the 
Piazza del Duomo by the Via Riccati. This little collection 

^ Biscaro, Gazzetta di Treviso., January, i, 1898, quoted by Gronau, 
"Titian" (1904), p. 297. 



TO TREVISO 229 

contains a fine altarpiece by Paris Bordone, a Nativity by 
Caprioli, a pupil of Bordone's, painted in 15 18, and, best of 
all, a fine portrait of a Dominican Friar, painted in 1526 by 
another of Treviso's sons, Lorenzo Lotto, by whom again 
there is a very wonderful altarpiece, a lunette of the Dead 
Christ, an early work, in S. Cristina, some five miles west 
of Treviso on the road to Padua. 

From the Gallery we pass to the Via Cavour, where we 
turn left into the broad Via delle Mura di S. Teonisto, and 
passing that church come to the great Dominican sanctuary of 
S. Niccolb. This is one of the largest Gothic brick churches 
in Italy, and was built by two Dominicans in 1310-1352. 
Over the High Altar is a picture of the sixteenth century — a 
Madonna Enthroned with her little Son. To the left is the 
tomb of Conte d' Onigo (1494) by Tullio Lombardo. Its 
background is painted by some pupil of Giovanni Bellini. 
In the chapel to the right of the High Altar is an early work 
by Sebastiano del Piombo of Christ and S. Thomas with 
donors. 

Nothing more of much interest remains in Treviso. Only 
in S. Maria Maggiore, on the other side of the city, is the 
tomb of Mercurio Bua, the condottiere, and in the Monte di 
Pieta is a fine picture of the Dead Christ by Beccaruzzi, 
another pupil of Pordenone. 



XVII 
CASTELFRANCO AND BASSANO 

THE road from Treviso to Castelfranco is a pleasant way 
enough in the springtime when the tender green of the 
new leaf gives the great world of the plain an almost vivid 
radiance, which it soon loses in the monotonous richness of 
early summer, the dust and drought of July. Pleasant enough 
is the road, but it can boast nothing of any moment to diffe- 
rentiate it from half a hundred others that cross this wide 
plain ; for indeed all this country between Venice and Milan 
is much the same; it lacks the infinite variety of Tuscany, and 
indeed of every part of Italy proper, and is, in fact, but a kind 
of green and living lagoon where desolation has been changed 
into plenty and misery into happiness. 

Nor are the little towns one passes on the way between 
Treviso and Castelfranco of much beauty or interest. There 
is Paese close to Treviso, there is Istrana not quite half-way, 
and just off the road there is Vedelago and Salvatronda, but 
they are all much alike, and, so far as I could find, there is 
nothing really to be seen in any one of them save their own 
graciousness and humility. 

Castelfranco, however, is not as these. To begin with, 

Castelfranco is a fully developed castello, a walled town 

defended by the Musone, with a great borgo on the further 

side of the river. Moreover, in all this region of the plain 

there is no more picturesque city than this of Castelfranco. 

For it is not merely walled but towered, and set, as it seems, 

230 



CASTELFRANCO 231 

on a little eminence out of the plain, which lends it so much 
dignity and charm that had Giorgione never lived there, had he 
never painted the beautiful altarpiece that now hangs in the 
Duomo, still one would go to Castelfranco, I think, for its 
own sake, and put up at the Albergo Stella d' Oro, that great 
posting-house, and watch the creepers that wreathe the old 
topless towers and the cypresses that count the hours on the 
old red walls, and sit in the cool shade of the sacred plane- 
trees. 

Nevertheless it would be but folly to ignore facts as they 
are, and so it must be admitted that of all the foreign 
travellers who come to Castelfranco, mostly for a brief day 
by train from Venice, scarcely one comes for any other 
reason than that Giorgione was born here, or for any other 
purpose than to see that fine picture of his in the Duomo, the 
Madonna enthroned with her little Son between S. Francis 
and S. Liberale. 

An extraordinary legend has adorned out of all recognition 
whatever may have been the brief life-story of perhaps the 
greatest of Venetian painters. Vasari's " Life," helped out by 
Ridolfi, makes us acquainted with a biography which is sure 
in none of its outlines, is delightfully vague in dates and rich 
in suggestiveness, and for the authenticity of which we have, 
alas ! not a single tittle of evidence. 

Vasari, indeed, opens his tale with an assertion that, 
generally speaking, all who are acquainted with Giorgione's 
works will readily accept. He says, " The city of Venice 
obtained no small glory from the talents and excellence of 
one of her citizens, by whom the Bellini, then held in so 
much esteem, were very far surpassed, as were all others who 
had practised painting up to that time in that city." This in 
reference to Giorgione may be true enough, but it does not 
carry us very far. Vasari, however, goes on to give us the 
few facts in his possession. He tells us that " This was 
Giorgio, born in the year 1478 at Castelfranco, in the territory 
of Treviso. . . . Giorgio was at a later period called Giorgione, 
as well from the character of his person as for the exaltation of 



232 VENICE AND YENETIA 

his mind. He was of very humble origin, but was neverthe- 
less very pleasing in manner and most estimable in character 
through the whole course of his life. Brought up at Venice, 
he took no small delight in love passages and in the sound of 
the lute, to which he was so cordially devoted, and which he 
practised so constantly, that he played and sang with the most 
exquisite perfection, insomuch that he was for this cause 
frequently invited to musical assemblies and festivals by the 
most distinguished personages." 

So far Vasari ; let us see what he has told us. He says 
that Giorgione was born in 1478 at Castelfranco. The date, 
I think, every one has accepted, but Vedelago, the village on 
the road to Treviso, claims as well as Castelfranco the honour 
of being Giorgione's birthplace. However, he is generally 
called Giorgione da Castelfranco, and no one has yet success- 
fully contested the general opinion that he was born there. 
Vasari calls him Giorgio, and adds that he was later called 
Giorgione for certain of his qualities. He omits altogether to 
tell us that the painter's family name was Barbarelli, but he 
emphasizes what for me, at least, is one of the most important 
things in Giorgione's life — his love of and gift for music, for, 
according to Vasari, it was this and not his painting which 
won him his entry into Venetian society. The love of music 
and the training in that art thus emphasized by Vasari seem 
to me of as much importance as any date or fact of birth, 
because they give us the key to the charm of so many of 
Giorgione's fine works ; they are a kind of visible music. 
And, indeed, music like a gold thread seems woven into most 
of them, in the choice of subject, as, for instance, in the 
" Shepherd with a Pipe " at Hampton Court, or the Fete 
Champetre of the Louvre, or the Apollo and Daphne of the 
Seminario at Venice, or, again, in those Giorgionesque works 
now attributed too completely to Titian, the Concert of the 
Pitti Palace or the Sacred and Profane Love of the Borghese 
Gallery. But everywhere in the work of Giorgione, whether 
the mere subject suggests music or no, the treatment and the 
expression always do, as though he alone had suddenly come 



CASTELFRANCO 233 

to understand that truth expressed for us once and for all by 
Walter Pater : " All art constantly aspires towards the condi- 
tion of music. For while in all other kinds of art it is possible 
to distinguish the matter from the form, and the understanding 
can always make this distinction, yet it is the constant effort 
of art to obliterate it. That the mere matter of a poem, for 
instance, its subject, namely, its given incidents or situation — 
that the mere matter of a picture, the actual circumstances of 
an event, the actual topography of a landscape — should be 
nothing without the form, the spirit of the handling, that this 
form, this mode of handling should become an end in itself, 
should penetrate every part of the matter ; this is what all art 
constantly strives after and achieves in different degrees." 
This seems to me to be something like the vraie verite^ and 
how well it explains for us the secret of the charm of Gior- 
gione's pictures ! What, then, is the subject of the Fete 
Champetre of the Louvre, the Apollo and Daphne of the 
Seminario, the Sacred and Profane Love of the Borghese 
Gallery, the Concert of the Pitti Palace? Men have con- 
tended about their titles for centuries. What is the subject 
of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony or the Third Ballade of 
Chopin ? I know not ; only those pictures, like these pieces 
of music, seem to express something that is in the world 
though in no satisfying measure, to express what is otherwise 
inexpressible, and without them would cease to exist for us ; 
for it lives only in their beauty, and by them we are made 
aware of it. 

It is almost the same with the Gipsy and the Soldier of 
Prince Giovanelli, only there, I think, anyone who has ever 
doubted that Giorgione was born at Castelfranco has his 
answer, for it is that httle towered city beside the Musone 
that we see in the background, under that gathering storm 
sweeping down from the hills. 

This little city, set so deliciously beside a torrent in the midst 
of a country that in its rhythmical beauty, its vague outline, 
and submission to the effect and colour of sun and cloud, of 
dawn and sunset, has itself much of the spirit of a Giorgione 



234 VENICE AND YENETIA 

picture, is the happy possessor of what will ever remain, I 
suppose, the work that is most certainly his very own — I mean 
the altarpiece of the Madonna enthroned with her little Son 
between S. Francis and S. Liberale. This glorious picture 
was, as is generally admitted, painted in 1504, and, to my 
mind, is one of the very few Venetian pictures — Giorgione's 
altarpiece in Madrid is another — which possess that serenity 
and peace, something in truth spellbound, that is necessary to 
and helps to make what I may call a religious picture. For 
something must be added to beauty, something must be added 
to art, to achieve that end which Perugino seems to have 
reached so easily, and which almost every Sienese painter 
knew by instinct how to attain. That quality is serenity, 
the something spellbound we find here. And Giorgione is the 
last Venetian master to possess that secret. Is it not the same 
in music? God forbid that I should claim that Palestrina 
is a greater master than Mozart, any more than I should 
claim that Giorgione is greater than Titian. It remains, 
however, that just as Giorgione, the Sienese and Perugino, 
to name no others, attained to this effect, while Titian, 
Tintoretto, Michelangelo, and a host of very great masters 
could not, so Palestrina, Byrd, and di Lasso could 
achieve it, yet Mozart, Beethoven, and the rest never once 
in all their work — something has gone out of the world 
of which we are ignorant, only we miss it more and more 
in looking back on the beauty that was in the hearts 
of our fathers. 

As for Giorgione, we must picture him as leaving Castel- 
franco with his lute and his music and going to Venice, where 
he certainly entered the bottega of Giovanni Bellini, who 
seems to have loved music too, if one may judge him by his 
music-making angels, which lie ever at the feet of Madonna 
like flowers almost. There in Venice he seems to have been 
welcome, at first at any rate, if we may believe Vasari, for his 
skill in music, and maybe it was to please those patrons, that 
he presently invented that new form of picture, the easel 
picture, only vaguely subjective, concerned really with a sort 



CASTELFRANCO 235 

of music he discerned in that evening hour on the wide plain 
that was his home, where the cities seem so small and so far 
away, and the sky and the earth so full of a half-expressed 
poetry or music. 

Very few of his works have come down to us, but the 
earliest we possess, according to Morelli, are the so-called 
Trial by Fire and the Judgment of Solomon, now in the 
Ufifizi, and the half-length figure of Christ bearing the Cross 
in the Loschi Collection at Vicenza. These all recall his 
master, Giovanni Bellini. Then, according to the same 
critic, comes the Castelfranco picture. All this is, however, 
nothing but fine conjecture. Whatever else Giorgione did in 
Venice in his too brief Hfe, he certainly fell in love "with a 
lady," Vasari says, " who returned his afifection with equal 
warmth, and they were immeasurably devoted to each other." 
Is it she we see as Madonna in this Castelfranco picture and 
again in the beautiful altarpiece in Madrid? Tradition has it 
so, and it is part of my creed to accept tradition. And, as it 
happens, tradition tells us one fact more, namely, that it was 
through this lady he came by his early death. For as one 
story goes, that of Vasari, his mistress was attacked by the 
plague, which he took from her along with her kisses, and so 
departed. The other tale is less happy, and we owe its cur- 
rency to Ridolfi, who says that Giorgione died of despair at 
the infidelity of his lady and the ingratitude of his disciple, 
Pietro Luzzo of Feltre, called Zarotto, by whom she had been 
seduced from him. Lanzi accepts this story, and will have it 
that Pietro Luzzo is Morto da Feltre ; but the other as tragic 
but less unhappy story has always held the field, and as there 
is no tittle of evidence for either^ it seems a pity to let 
it go. 

Giorgione died, as we think, in 15 10-15 11, i^ his thirty-fourth 
year. His vague story, his exquisite, serene picture, fill our 
minds in Castelfranco, where, in fact, there is little enough to 
see and nothing to note save the play of sun and cloud on the 
old towered and tufted walls that stand so well in the vast 
plain, and nothing to do but to pray to the mountains. 



236 VENICE AND YENETIA 

For in Castelfranco, as everywhere in that great flatness, it 
is the mountains that call one, that beseech one night and day, 
and will not let one be. It was therefore one morning I set 
out for Montebelluno, which, I told myself, was Portia's 
Belmont, as I think it is, and for those who think that villa 
was on the Brenta, I would say that Montebelluno is close to 
Can Brentettone. Nothing but the hills is to be seen at 
Montebelluno, but it is a fine point of departure for a 
delightful drive through Asolo to Bassano. 

The road crosses the foothills of the Montebello range 
and at once proceeds to cross the plain to Maser, under 
the Monti Bassanesi. Here is a great villa, built by Palladio 
for Marcantonio Barbaro, and painted with frescoes for the 
same noble by Paolo Veronese. The frescoes are admirably 
lovely, and the whole villa, with its air of the sixteenth 
century and ancient luxury, is worth almost any trouble 
to see, which one is permitted to do by the generous 
owner. The road from Maser, after finally passing through 
Crespignaga, climbs some six hundred feet into Asolo, 
whence there is a great view over all this flat country and 
of the great mountains in whose shadow the little town lies. 
Here Queen Caterina Cornaro from Cyprus dwelt in exile. 
Born in 1454, this unfortunate lady married King James 
II of Cyprus in 1472. After her husband's death the 
Venetians claimed the island, and kept Queen Caterina for 
some time a prisoner, though she was far from unfairly dealt 
with. Free in 1489, she set up her home in Asolo, and kept 
there a court of poets. Pietro Bembo, later to be cardinal, 
here composed his " Asolani." There is little to be seen in 
the old and shrunken city save some wonderful views, and in 
the Duomo a spoiled but still charming altarpiece by Lorenzo 
Lotto of the Madonna and Child with S. Anthony and 
S. Basil. 

Leaving Asolo and the memory of its ruined Lady, we pass 
on by a pleasant road enough under the hills to Bassano. 
Just before we enter Bassano we may see, if we look south- 
ward across the plain, the ruined Rocca of Romano, where 



BASSANO 237 

one who had a profound influence on the history not only of 
Bassano, but of all this country so far as Verona, was born. 
Ecelino da Romano first saw the light here in 1194. He was 
the dreadful flower of a dreadful race. He seems at last to 
have regarded himself "with a sort of awful veneration as the 
divinely appointed scourge of humanity." After his death he 
became a name of dread such as none other was but Totila. 
Yet he founded a state that in its day was perhaps the most 
powerful in Northern Italy and certainly the most dreaded. 
This consisted not merely of Bassano and Treviso and their 
contadi^ but of Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Feltre, and Belluno. 
He was a Ghibelline, and his abuse of power became so 
terrible that the Pope, Alexander IV, issued letters for a 
crusade against him, and it was actually preached at Ravenna 
by the Archbishop in 1255. 

Villani, the Florentine chronicler, says of him : " This 
Ecelino was the most cruel and redoubtable tyrant that ever 
was among Christians, and ruled by his force and his tyranny 
(being by birth a gentleman of the house of Romano) long 
time the Trevisan March and the city of Padua and a great 
part of Lombardy; and he brought to an end a very great 
part of the citizens of Padua and blinded great numbers of 
the best and most noble, taking their possessions and sending 
them begging through the world, and many others he put to 
death by divers sufferings and torments, and burnt at one time 
11,000 Paduans ; and by reason of their innocent blood by 
miracle no grass grew there again for evermore. And under 
semblance of a rugged and cruel justice he did much evil and 
was a great scourge in his time in the Trevisan March and in 
Lombardy, to punish them for the sin of ingratitude. At last, 
as it pleased God by less powerful men than his own, he was 
vilely defeated and slain, and all his followers were dispersed 
and his family and his rule came to nought." 

Such was Ecelino da Romano. We shall find him every- 
where as we pass through these cities and shall recall his 
dwarfish, wizened figure of hate never without a shudder. He 
died in 1260 of his wounds, from which he tore away the 



2 38 VENICE AND VENETIA 

bandages of his foes. In Dante's universe we find him in the 
seventh circle of the Inferno. 

Now of all the places between the mountains and Venice 
Bassano is the best, and the jolliest to live in. It is not 
like an Italian town, its great bridge is not like an Italian 
bridge, nor are its mountains like Italian mountains ; there is 
something of Germany in all of them, and looking up to the 
great hills who can wonder at it ? The frontier cannot be ten 
miles away. Yet for all its air of the north Bassano is a very 
charming place, full of hospitable folk, too, who are proud of 
their city, which indeed contains all the usual ingredients of an 
Italian town — fine and interesting churches, a noble Palazzo 
Pubblico, towers, palaces, terraces, walks, and as splendid a 
view as is to be had in all this country, as splendid and as 
surprising. 

The story of Bassano has been exceedingly eventful. In 
the clamour of the end of the Dark Ages it was held in feud by 
the Ecelini from the Bishops of Vicenza. Their dominion 
raised the first circuit of walls, of which almost nothing 
remains but an old tower. When their appalling rule vanished 
at last in a sea of blood, Bassano was for a little a free Com- 
mune with a republican form of government. It was, however, 
but a small place, and as holding the mountains was coveted 
both by Vicenza and Padua. Padua seems to have prevailed, 
and when the Scala of Verona seized Padua in the fourteenth 
century Bassano also was ceded to them. Then, as we know, 
came Venice, and Bassano with Treviso made, as we have 
seen, her first acquisitions on the mainland. Bassano knew 
many vicissitudes after that, however, and fell into hands as 
various as those of the Carraresi and the Visconti, but in the 
fifteenth century she gave herself spontaneously to Venice, 
under whose excellent government she remained till 1797. 

However one may come to Bassano, one is sure to come 
first into the long Piazza or market, with its fine old houses 
still faintly frescoed, for all the roads lead thither. Here are 
two fine churches, the upper of which, S. Franceso, erected in 
1 158 by Ecelino il Balbo, is the finer and historically the 



BASSANO 239 

more interesting. This church was restored at various periods, 
but it still retains sufficient antiquity to interest us, and its 
campanile is beautiful. Within the church, on the right, is a 
fresco by Guariento. 

Among the other churches S. Donato in Via Angarano, is 
to be noted. It was built by Ecelino il Monaco in 1208, 
and there he divided his possessions between his two sons, 
Ecelino IV and Alberico, in 1223. A Franciscan convent 
was added to it, and it is said that there S. Francis of Assisi 
and S. Antonio of Padua stayed. 

The Duomo to the north of the city is interesting for its 
pictures by Jacopo Bassano, born here in 1501, who was the 
pupil of Bonifazio and died at eighty years of age. Like all 
the Venetian school, he was a painter of genre, only with him 
that came to mean painting just country scenes about his 
home, the life of peasants and farmers, out of which he con- 
trived numberless scenes in the life of Christ or the lives of 
the Saints. Here in the Duomo are the Assumption of the 
Virgin, with portraits of Charles V, the Doge of Venice, the 
Pope, and so forth, which are less characteristic than usual. 
But on the other side of the church we find him altogether 
himself in a fine Nativity and a Martyrdom of S. Stephen. 
There is a fine Crucifix to be seen close by Jacopo's first 
picture. 

Close by the Duomo is the old broken palace of the 
Ecelini, now partly occupied by the Dean of the Cathedral — 
a picturesque place. 

As for pictures, one may have one's fill of them in the Museo 
Civico, not far from S. Francesco, in the convent indeed once 
attached to that church, built on the site of the cell where 
S. Francis and S. Antony are said to have stayed. The col- 
lection is chiefly interesting, as it should be, for the works of 
the Bassanesi, of whom Francesco, Jacopo, and Leandro were 
the chief. 

In the first room we have a picture by Francesco Bassano, 
the father of the more famous Jacopo, of the Madonna and 
Child with S. Peter and S. Paul. Here, too, are three 



240 VENICE AND YENETIA 

pictures by Jacopo — S. Valentine Christening a Dumb Girl 
(15), the Nativity (17), and S. John in the Desert (19), and a 
Deposition (22) by Leandro Bassano, the son of Jacopo. 

In the second room is a great painted Crucifix by Guariento 
of Padua, and some works of the school of Mantegna. The 
third room is devoted to the memory of Canova, who was born 
at Possagno, near by, in 1757. His original models for his 
Venus and Hebe are here and casts of other of his works. 

It is not these things, however, that would keep a man 
more than a single day in Bassano. The charm of Bassano 
lies not in her churches, her palaces, and her pictures, but in 
herself, in the unique position she occupies in regard to the 
mountains, and in the great views she commands of mountain 
and valley. One realizes this at once, and best of all, I think, 
from the great and lofty terraced road to the north of the city, 
whence one sees the ruins of the castello of the Ecelini, and, 
beyond a wide green valley, the sudden rise of the mountains 
in gigantic precipices and vast cliffs of rugged stone. They 
stand like a wall which no man could breach, but which the 
river has broken, so that from the gate of Bassano these 
mountains may be passed. 

Nor is the charm of Bassano less felt on the western side of 
the town, where the little foothills rise in the distance beyond 
the borgo which the river, crossed here by its strange wooden 
roofed bridge, divides from the city proper. 

This bridge over the swiftly flowing Brenta has a long 
history. No one knows when the first bridge was built here, 
but we hear of one in 1209 for the first time and of rebuildings 
in 1450 and 1499. The structure was always of wood, and it 
was always being burned down, which befell again in 1 5 1 1 in 
the war of the League of Cambrai. It was rebuilt in 1522, 
and then again, in stone this time, in 1525, only to be rebuilt 
in wood in 1 53 1. A flood destroyed it in 1567, and Palladio 
rebuilt it in 1570. This seems, though repaired, to have 
lasted till 1748, when a new bridge was built on the old 
model, only to be burnt in 1813, and finally rebuilt as we see 
it in 1 82 1. Passing across this bridge, we come into the Borgo 



CITTADELLA 241 

Angarano, where stands the Church of S. Donate, built, as I 
have said, in 1208 by Ecelino il Monaco. 

But I cannot sum up half the charms of Bassano in a brief 
chapter, for they are composed of very many small things, 
unimportant in themselves, but when found all together a 
treasure. Come and see : and then when you have seen and 
understood Bassano, take, with a good courage, the great road 
that runs almost due south from Bassano out across the plain 
for Cittadella and Padua. 

If you start at dawn you may take lunch in Cittadella, for 
the road is a good road, though a little monotonous, yet in 
spring amid the corn and the vines it has much to recommend it. 

Cittadella, however, has little to offer you but its walls, built 
by the Carraresi of Padua in 1220 to face the Trevisan fortress 
of Castelfranco, founded two years earlier. Yet for all its 
poverty it possesses a picture of some note, as what Italian 
town does not? This wonder, a Last Supper, by Jacopo 
Bassano, is to be seen in the Duomo. But Padua called me, 
and was far — twenty-five miles across the plain. I thought of 
my long tramp that morning from Bassano, I thought of the Inn 
I knew in Padua, I thought above all of the dust and length of 
the way. At three o'clock I found myself in the station of 
Cittadella awaiting the train, which, not too late, presently 
bore me through a great green garden all the way to Padua ; 
and there I came without longing or weariness before nightfall. 



R 



XVIII 
PADUA 



MANY-DOMED Padua, as I like to remember Shelley 
called it, stands like a curious great casket away from 
the Brenta to the south of it, still largely surrounded by its 
old walls, a place still only half awakened by the hurry of the 
modern world. All sorts of things are to be found in Padua : 
frescoes, for instance, such as exist nowhere else in all the 
Veneto, the shrine of a great saint such as in this country 
only Venice herself can match, more than one cool and 
beautiful church beside, a ruined amphitheatre now a garden, 
two noble Piazze, a great and fine Palazzo Pubblico, and a 
university among the oldest in Europe : what more can 
anyone ask of any city in the world ? 

But Padua is something better than a mere subject for 
sightseeing : she is a treasure-house which contains something 
more than pictures, frescoes, churches, and curiosities ; she 
has still something of the strangely bright and sunlit delight 
of Pisa. Here as there the great church is set apart in the 
quietest corner of the town, though we miss the meadow that 
the Tuscan city has spread about her Duomo. We miss, of 
course, any such glory as the matchless group of buildings 
there, and we miss the hills. Yet not altogether, after all. 
For if Pisa boasts the Monti Pisani which form so noble a 
background to that white city in the marsh, Padua boasts the 
Monti Euganei, not less lovely though somewhat farther away, 

and in this has little, if anything, to envy Pisa. But it is the 

242 






PALAZZO EZZELINO BALBO, PADUA 



PADUA 243 

air, the spirit of quietness and of well-being common to both, 
the suggestion of something withdrawn, that brings the two 
cities together in my mind. Each is on a main Hne of railway, 
each is at the door of one of the two greater pleasure cities 
in Italy, each is but an anteroom to the best of all, and is too 
often passed by with scarce a disdainful glance ; yet rightly 
understood there can be but few things in the world more 
lovely than Pisa, there can be few places in the world more 
delightful than Padua. It is true they have both seen better 
days, but then what Italian city has not ? But they remain 
cities of quiet joy ; and since Padua will be the first to be spoilt, 
it is well that we should all see and enjoy her while we may. 
This also the two cities possess in common, that both have 
had a various and eventful history ; and though the fate of 
Padua was not so tragic as that of Pisa it was like it in this, 
that it entailed the loss of her independence and brought 
her into the power of the great city at whose doors she stood. 
Florence consumed Pisa, Venice consumed Padua; and if 
Padua was, as is not to be denied, the happier in her fate, 
she owed it to the greatness of the republic into whose hands 
she fell . 

But Padua had an already ancient story when Venice at 
last drew her within her dominion. Indeed, her history was 
hoary before Venice was. As the legends will have it, Padua 
was founded by Antenor after the Fall of Troy in B.C. 1199 
or 1 184. The city may well have an Euganean origin, but 
we certainly know that in b.c. 302 she was fighting against 
Cleomenes of Sparta, that the rostri of his galleys adorned her 
Temple of Juno, and that she fought among the allies of 
Rome at the battle of Cannae. In b.c. 45 she was declared 
1 Roman colony. With the Empire she came to great 
jplendour, and is said to have been the richest of all the 
[talian cities and the most populous after Rome itself. In 
;he time of Augustus she numbered five hundred citizens of 
he Equestrian order and boasted splendid theatres and mag- 
lificent baths. She fell, as all this part of the Empire fell, 
inder the invasions of Alaric and Attila, which almost 



244 VENICE AND VENETIA 

destroyed her, and she had a part, and that no small one, in 
the foundation of Venice, that raft which was constructed 
in the terror of shipwreck to save what could be saved. Her 
fate, however, was happier than that of Aquileia — more for- 
tunate than that of Altinum. She rose again from her ashes, 
and in the time of Charlemagne was already of some import- 
ance. During the whole of the disastrous ninth century she 
continued to endure, though filled again and again with ruins. 
Her true renaissance begins with the twelfth century, when 
she got her own magistrates, and in 1 1 64 before any other 
Italian city she threw off the iron yoke of Barbarossa and pro- 
claimed herself a republic. In 11 75 she got her first Podesta, 
Alberto Osa da Milano. This period of liberty was quite 
spoiled by the continual wars Padua was compelled to wage 
on its behalf with neighbouring cities. Her most bitter, ter- 
rible, and relentless enemy was, as we might expect, that I 
"grey, wizened, dwarfish devil Ecelin," of whom we have 
heard in Bassano. By 1236 he was master of Treviso, Vicenza, 
and Padua. After twenty years of carnage the oppressed rose 
against this appalling criminal, and in June, 1259, he was slain. 
Then Padua for a time had peace ; learning, the arts, manu- 
facture flourished, and the finest things still left in Padua 
were built and painted. The peace ended with the advent 
into Italy of Henry of Luxembourg in 131 1. He wished to 
impose an imperial vicar upon the Paduans, who would have 
none of him. Therefore Henry stirred up Cane della Scala 
of Verona to attack them and the city of Vicenza, with whom 
they were allied. The war thus begun lasted long with varying 
fortune, nor did the death of the Emperor end it, for the 
cupidity of the Scala being aroused and in a sense legiti- 
mized, it was not to be put off or easily assuaged. Moreover, 
unhappy Padua in this crisis found herself involved in the 
Guelf and Ghibelline quarrel. There were many who for 
their own ends sided with the Emperor and the Scaligers. 
Among these was the Ghibelline family of the Carraresi, who, 
at once seeing or hoping that something might be gained, 
waged suddenly private war against the Alticlini and the 



PADUA 245 

Ronchi, their enemies, within the city. In the midst of 
this affair Cane descended and led away Marsilio and Jacopo 
da Carrara as prisoners to Verona. It seems that there 
Jacopo came to some understanding with Cane, for in 131 8 
he was sent back to the city as Lord of Padua. 

It was just then that Venice came upon the scene. With 
Padua in the hands of Jacopo da Carrara, a mere nominee of 
the Scala, she saw her trade route of the Brenta in an enemy's 
hands. Moreover, as we have seen, the Scala were now 
supreme not merely in Verona and Padua, but in Vicenza, 
Feltre, Belluno, and Treviso. Their lordships hemmed in 
the lagoons and cut Venice off from her great markets. Nor 
did Scala hold his hand ; he saw how the wealth of Venice 
might be made to pay an ever-increasing tribute, and at once 
imposed duties on the transport of Venetian food in the dis- 
tricts of Treviso and Padua, and actually built a fort and a toll- 
house on the Po. The reply of Venice was to cut off his 
supply of salt ; but it was not enough. War followed, and as 
a result of that war Scala was beaten, and as soon as he was 
beaten his protege, the House of Carrara, proved false to him. 
Marsilio da Carrara, lately his prisoner in Verona, whose 
brother Jacopo he had made Lord of Padua, when sent as 
his ambassador to the Venetians betrayed him, came to secret 
terms with the Doge, undertook to place Padua in the hands 
of Venice on condition that he was established as Lord. As 
we have seen, Scala was beaten and Padua taken. By the 
treaty of 1339 Treviso and Bassano fell to Venice, the Car- 
raresi were established in Padua, and the Scaligers ceased to 
be a danger to Venice. 

The Brenta and the Padovano were now held by a tributary 
of Venice, the House of Carrara, which depended for its 
existence on the protection of Venice; for if the Scala star was 
setting, the Visconti star, a far greater luminary, was rising, 
and without Venice Padua must inevitably have become a 
part of the new constellation of Milan. There followed a 
perfect example of what, though it was continually happening 
and we have hundreds of examples of it, remains an in- 



246 VENICE AND VENETIA ^ 

soluble mystery in the political history of the Communes of 
Italy. 

From the thirteenth to the seventeenth century the history 
of diplomacy in Italy is merely a long story of the most bare- 
faced and childish lying, treason, and disloyalty that is to be 
found in the history of man. Diplomacy as then understood 
seems to have consisted merely in telling falsehoods that no 
one, it might seem, could possibly have believed if he had not 
himself been so incorrigible a liar as to have deprived him- 
self of any sense of difference between falsehood and truth. 
Here were these Carraresi, Jacopo and Marsilio. They had, 
to begin with, made the most barefaced attempt to establish 
a tyranny in Padua. They had failed. Carried off as prisoners 
to Verona, one of them, Jacopo, had so far imposed upon 
Cane della Scala as to obtain from him the Lordship of Padua 
under his suzerainty. At the first opportunity he proved false 
to his trust ; yet the Scala chose his brother Marsilio as their 
ambassador to Venice, and, as might have been expected, with 
the inevitable result that he proved a traitor. With this history 
in their hands the Venetians must have been convinced, one 
might suppose, that there was nothing but falsehood and 
treason to be got from the House of Carrara. Yet they 
established them in Padua. It is incredible and inexplic- 
able; but similar things occur everywhere on every page of 
the history of the time. 

In the year 1339, then, we have Marsilio da Carrara estab- 
lished in Padua as tributary Lord by Venice. The result was 
certain, nor have we long to wait for it. Wherever and when- 
ever possible the Carraresi sided against the Republic. For 
instance, the disasters of the Genoese sea war at Sapienza 
and the conspiracy of Marino Faliero weakened the Republic, 
so that the Hungarians revived their claims to Dalmatia ; the 
Carrara refused to ally themselves with Venice, they preferred 
to remain neutral in a campaign which did not directly con- 
cern them ; but as a fact they did all they could to help the 
Hungarians in their siege of Treviso. Venice seems to have 
been surprised at this. It is incredible. The peace of Zara 



PADUA 247 

contained a provision that the Carrara were not to be inter- 
fered with by Venice. This, if nothing else could, seems 
finally to have aroused the disgust, anger, and suspicion of 
the Republic. It was time. Before long Carrara was known 
to be building forts along the Brenta as far as Oriago. The 
times were unfavourable, but Venice could not stomach this. 
She threatened war and made it, when the true relations of 
things at once became clear. Carrara was supported by the 
King of Hungary. Here, however, Venice had a stroke of 
luck. The king's nephew fell into her hands, and as the price 
of his freedom — perhaps of his life — the king withdrew and 
left Carrara to make what peace he could. This he accom- 
plished in 1373; and though it was entirely favourable to 
Venice, it was too nice to Carrara, for it left him more than 
his Ufe, it left him his Lordship ; yet he was condemned to 
pay a large indemnity and to destroy his forts on the Brenta 
and to cede Feltre to Venice as security for good conduct. 
In all this Venice acted too leniently. She should have extir- 
pated the Carraresi breed and taken Padua into her own 
hands. The final struggle with Genoa proved this. No 
sooner was the war of Chioggia seen to be going against 
Venice than Carrara joined the Genoese. He blockaded 
the lagoons from the mainland, tried to starve Venice out, 
urged Pietro Doria to the great attack he refused which 
would have carried the city, fed the Genoese and supported 
them in Chioggia in the final stage of the war, and all 
through the campaign besieged Treviso. 

At last the eyes of Venice were open. When Genoa was 
broken and she was alone upon the sea she remembered Car- 
rara and bethought her how she might crush him. Carrara 
also saw that he must win now or never. In order to save 
Treviso and Feltre from him Venice had given them to the 
Duke of Austria. Carrara bought them from him. Bassano 
came into his hands. What Scala had failed to do he now 
thought to attempt. But he had reckoned without Visconti. 
Carrara tried first to deal with him, but he had met a greater 
rascal than himself. They divided the Scala dominion between 



248 VENICE AND VENETIA 

them. To Visconti went Verona, to Carrara Vicenza. Visconti 
took them both by force. Immediately both Carrara and Vis- 
conti turned to Venice for aid to extirpate each the other, 
Carrara pointed to the obvious danger of so powerful a neigh- 
bour, Visconti pointed to the equally obvious record of Carrara. 
He offered Treviso, Feltre, and Ceneda to the Republic. 
Venice heard him and agreed. Those cities passed into her 
hands, Visconti took and held Verona, Vicenza, and Padua. 

But Visconti was altogether too dangerous and strong for 
Venice to contemplate his dominion in the Veneto as per- 
manent. She at once seized the opportunity of his attack on 
Bologna to join Florence against him, and in this crisis 
restored the Carraresi to Padua. What would have been the 
issue of such a vast conflict one cannot tell, for just as it was 
really to be decided in 1402 Visconti died, and his great 
dominion fell swiftly to pieces. 

In this breathing space it began to dawn on Venice that 
now Visconti was removed she had no longer any possible 
need for Carrara. And this was impressed upon her by his 
insolent claim to Vicenza, which Visconti's widow held stoutly, 
appealing to Venice for aid. The Republic demanded Bassano, 
Vicenza, and Verona from her. She gave them : what else 
could she do ? 

Venice then ordered the Carraresi to hold their attack. 
There were two of them as usual in the affair, most truly their 
fathers' sons, Francesco and Jacopo. They refused, knowing 
their hour was struck. Francesco the Republic besieged in 
Padua, Jacopo in Verona. After fierce fighting both cities fell. 
The two Carraresi were brought to Venice, where the mob, 
with a true instinct, howled for their blood. The Govern- 
ment, it is said, inclined to spare them. A vast plot, however, 
was early and conveniently discovered, in which both were 
said to be involved, and the Council of Ten had them both 
strangled in prison in January, 1405. 

Thus was the dominion of Venice established, not in Padua 
alone, nor only in Treviso and Bassano, but through the whole 
of that great province which bore her name from the Adige to 



PADUA 249 

the Alps, the Tagliamento and the sea. And this dominion 
she was to hold, to govern wisely and well till her fall. She 
had become not merely mistress of the seas, but one of the 
greatest land powers in the peninsula, and by far the most 
successful State that even till our day has ever existed there 
since the fall of the Empire. 



II 

Such is the history of Padua in its relation to the Veneto. 
Under Venetian rule it quickly grew and flourished. Its 
University, already founded, became famous throughout 
Europe, and the fame of the city in Christendom had long since 
been established by the shrine of S. Anthony. It is always 
as the University town or as the city of S. Anthony we come 
upon Padua in the memoirs of our fathers. There is Evelyn, 
for instance: "On the . . . June," he writes, "we went to 
Padua to the Faire of their S. Anthony, in company of divers 
passengers. The first terra firma we landed at [he came 
from Venice] was Fusina, being only an inn, where we 
changed our barge and were drawne up by horses thro' 
the river Brenta, a straight chanell as even as a line for 
20 miles, the country on both sides deliciously adorned 
with country villas and gentlemen's retirements, gardens 
planted with oranges, figs, and other fruit belonging to ye 
Venetians." 

That is still a fine way to come to Padua from Venice, only 
now the villas are deserted and ruinous and the way as 
melancholy though as beautiful as any in the world. 

Evelyn also speaks of the University : " Ye scholes of this 
flourishing and ancient university," where especially " ye 
studie of physic and anatomic " was undertaken. " They 
are fairly built in quadrangle with cloysters beneath and 
above with columns. Over the greate gate are the armes 
of ye Venetian State and under ye lion of S. Marc. . . . 
About ye court walls are carv'd in stone and painted the 
blazons of the Consuls of all the nations that from time to 



250 VENICE AND VENETIA 

time have had that charge and honour in the universitie, 
which at my being there was my worthy friend Dr. Rogers, 
who here took his degree." 

That was in 1645. Thirty years before, another English- 
man, more famous in his day than Mr. Evelyn, had been 
educated at Padua. This was Mr. Nicholas Ferrar, who 
afterwards founded a " Protestant Nunnery " at Little Gidding 
and who is so great a figure in Shorthouse's " John Inglesant." 
There he studied medicine, geometry, philosophy, and rhetoric. 
There was an anatomical theatre and a " garden of simples 
rarely furnished with plants," to which was attached a school 
of pharmacy, which had been in existence in 161 5 for more 
than sixty years. There were also two hospitals for the study 
of clinical medicine, furnished with the " greatest helps and 
most skilful physicians," as well as subjects to exercise upon. 
All of which Evelyn saw and described. 

Such was Padua of old, the city of S. Anthony and of a 
great University, where, by the way, Tasso was a student. 
But though for what is left of Cathohc Europe — and that is 
little enough, alas ! — Padua remains the city of S. Anthony, 
who comes to her to-day to be taught " medicine, geometry, 
philosophy, and rhetoric " ? 

It is to no University, but to a tiny chapel in a garden of 
mulberries that we make our way from the station or from the 
Inn. It stands in the old Roman Arena, whose shape can still 
be traced in the oval garden ; and Giotto has painted there, 
it is said while Dante was in Padua, ^ the story of Madonna 
and the story of Our Lord, It seems that in 130 1 a certain 
Enrico Scrovegno, a rich citizen of Padua, had been raised to 
the rank of a noble by the RepubHc of Venice.^ He devoted 
a part of the wealth he had inherited from his father, Rinaldo 
Scrovegno, whom Dante places in the Inferno on account 
of his usury and avarice,3 to the building of a chapel, com- 

^ Benvenuto da Imola in Muratori, " Antiq. Ital.," i, p. 1186. 
'^ Cf. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, " History of Painting in Italy " (ed, 
Hutton, 1909), vol. i, p. 228, 
3 "Inferno," xvii. v, 64. 



PADUA 251 

pleted in 1303 and dedicated to S. Maria Annunziata. Nor 
did he stop here, for he employed the first painter in Italy to 
cover the chapel with frescoes, if Benvenuto da Imola is to be 
believed, in the year 1306. Indeed, it has been suggested, 
and Crowe and Cavalcaselle seem inclined to accept the state- 
ment, that Giotto not only decorated but built the chapel. 
More modern opinion, however, is more doubtful, and is even 
confused as to the position of Giotto's undoubted frescoes 
here in the story of his art. Thus it is not absolutely certain 
whether Giotto painted at Assisi in the Lower Church before 
or after working at Padua. Mr. Berenson, indeed, with whom 
more and more I find myself in agreement, denies to Giotto 
all the work usually given him in the Lower Church at Assisi, 
and assigns to him in part three frescoes in the Chapel of 
S. Mary Magdalen there, adding that they were painted 
"before 1323," but presumably after the work here in Padua. 
Messrs. Douglas and Strong, on the other hand, accept the 
frescoes usually given to Giotto in the Lower Church at Assisi 
and think that they are later than these in the Arena Chapel. 
Crowe and Cavalcaselle hold that Giotto's work in Padua is 
later than his work in the Lower Church at Assisi. For my 
own part I think that Giotto first worked in Rome, then in the 
Florence Bargello, then in the Upper Church at Assisi, then 
in Padua, and then in the S. Mary Magdalen Chapel in the 
Lower Church at Assisi. I should be inclined to accept 
Benvenuto da Imola's statement, and to find Giotto in Padua 
about 1306, when Dante was lodging in the Contrada di 
S. Lorenzo. 

But whatever the date of these frescoes, this at least is 
certain, that the frescoes of the Arena Chapel, with the 
exception, perhaps, of those in the Chapel of S. Mary 
Magdalen in the Lower Church at Assisi, are the best 
preserved of all the work Giotto has left us. 

Before considering them in any detail, let us glance at the 
chapel they glorify. Built in the form of a single-vaulted 
aisle, with the choir merely separated from the nave by an 
arch, the chapel is lighted by six windows in the south wall. 



252 VENICE AND VENETIA 

There is thus a very large space in a building really small, for 
the fresco painter, and Giotto took every advantage of this. 
He arranged his subjects according to the tradition of his 
time, already some centuries old, but with an artistic sense 
of their value in relation to each other that was all his own. 
Over the entrance he placed the Last Judgment. Opposite 
this, on the choir arch, he painted Our Lord in Glory guarded 
by angels, and beneath, the Annunciation. On the side walls 
between this arch and the entrance wall he painted in a triple 
course thirty-eight scenes of the life of the Blessed Virgin and 
of Our Lord. " These subjects," say Crowe and Cavalcaselle, 
"were enclosed in a painted ornament of a beautiful kind, 
interrupted at intervals by httle frames of varied forms con- 
taining subjects from the Old and New Testaments. All 
rested on a painted marble cornice, supported on brackets 
and pilasters, in the intervals of which were fourteen figures 
in dead colour representing the Virtues and the Vices. As 
in the Chapel of the Podestk, so at the Arena, the wagon 
roof was spanned by two feigned arches. The field of the 
vault was blue and starred, adorned in the centre with 
medallions of the Saviour and the Virgin and on the sides 
with eight medallions of prophets. By this division of subject 
and of ornamentation, an admirable harmony was created. 
The feigned cornice, with its feigned bas-reliefs, illustrates 
completely the ability with which Giotto combined archi- 
tecture with sculpture and painting; whilst in the style of 
the ornaments themselves the most exquisite taste and a 
due subordination of parts were combined." 

On entering the Arena Chapel the traveller sees first, 
as Giotto intended, the Saviour of the world in glory among 
His angels. He finds this great and majestic splendour, 
and, bowing his head, dropping his eyes, he sees beneath 
the Annunciation, the message from Heaven to earth, which 
brought God down into the world in our likeness. There 
follow, as I have said, in three courses on either side, the 
preparation for that message in the life of the Virgin, the 
result of it in the life of Christ. But what has not been so 



PADUA 253 

generally noticed is the subtle and beautiful manner in which 
Giotto has mystically caused the one to correspond as it were 
with the other. Is it here we may see Dante's hand ? For 
instance, the first fresco on one side of the Annunciation is 
the Salutation, in which Elizabeth greets Our Lady ; opposite 
to it the first fresco on the other side is the Salutation of 
Judas in which he betrayed Our Lord. Such is the wonder- 
ful method that underlies the decoration of the chapel, an 
arrangement emphasized by the virtues and vices which face 
one another on the marble skirting. Now the practice of the 
virtues leads us towards Paradise. Therefore the first of the 
virtues, which is Hope, is turned towards that part of the 
great fresco of the Last Judgment in which we may see 
Paradise. The pursuit of vice leads to Damnation, therefore 
the last of the vices. Despair, is drawn by a devil towards the 
Inferno. 

It might seem superfluous to name the thirty-eight frescoes 
with which Giotto has illuminated this chapel, for there can 
be no one so ignorant of the Christian Legend as not to 
recognize them at a glance. It will be enough to say that 
they begin on the topmost course at the right hand of the 
Christ in glory, and continue on this course quite round the 
chapel, and so with the second and third courses. Nowhere 
in Christendom is there a series of frescoes comparable with 
this for beauty and freshness of colour, for vitality of form and 
gesture, combined with a superb decorative loveliness. We 
may prefer the Raising of Lazarus in S. Mary Magdalen's 
Chapel in the Lower Church at Assisi to that we see here ; 
we may prefer the Noli me Tangere there to this in Padua; 
we may even say with Crowe and Cavalcaselle that " though 
purely and dramatically conceived and executed the Cruci- 
fixion at Padua is less successfully presented than that of the 
Lower Church of Assisi," but where in Assisi even, where in 
Florence, where anywhere in Italy are we to look for a work so 
complete, so majestic, and so lovely as this frescoed chapel in 
Padua ? The only thing left to us that may be compared to it 
is the Upper Church at Assisi, which, so far as it is not a 



254 VENICE AND VENETIA 

ruin, we owe to the same painter, Giotto — but Giotto in his 
earlier years. 

Yet the splendour of Giotto's work here must not blind us 
to the other treasures of the church. The frescoes in the 
choir of the Death, Assumption, and Coronation of the 
Virgin are indeed of no account, but here is a fine monument 
to the founder of the church, and in the little sacristy close by 
is a splendid half-figure of the Madonna and Child by 
Giovanni Pisano, one of his best works. To the same 
sculptor may be assigned the statue of Scrovegno. Here, too, 
is a fine Crucifix, perhaps from Giotto's hand, full of the 
majesty and dignity we seem to miss in the fresco in the 
chapel. 

It is always with regret one leaves the Chapel of the Arena, 
for nothing to compare with it is to be found in Padua, or, 
indeed, in all Northern Italy. Yet for our consolation we 
may discover, and that close by, a very interesting if not 
unique convent of Augustinians, now spoiled and ruined, but, 
in spite of the Government, containing still many precious 
and beautiful things. It is true that to-day the convent is 
given up to the use of the Italian army ; that is not as sur- 
prising as it is shameful. Italy has accustomed us to this sort 
of outrage, and some have grown so used to it as to consider 
it almost virtuous. So that if you or I exclaim at it and make 
accusation we are to be blamed as rude and vulgar persons 
unused to the ways of the world ! Yet we will make our 
accusation all the same, and one day be sure it will have to be 
answered. 

The Augustinians, or Austin Friars, to whom the church 
and convent belonged, although now called Mendicants, are 
really an Order of hermits, as their true Italian name, 
degli Eremitani, proves. They derive their origin from 
S. Augustine, in Tagaste, in the year 388, when that great 
Doctor brought some persons into his own house and gave 
them a Rule, which he kept with them. In 1256, about the 
time that we first hear of them in Padua, Pope Alexander IV 



PADUA 255 

collected together under this Rule all the hermits in Europe, 
and in 1567 Pius V congregated them with the Mendicant 
Friars. Their three great saints are S. Augustine, S. Nicholas 
of Tolentino, and S. Thomas of Villanova. Among their 
illusiri is Pope Eugenius IV. 

The Church of the Eremitani in Padua dates from the 
thirteenth century, but it has been much restored, notably so 
late as 1880. It is a long and spacious building with a 
painted roof of wood, and it contains several precious works 
of art. 

To begin with, over the main door is a fine Giottesque 
Crucifix, attributed, however, to Guariento, an early painter 
of this city, who was of so great importance in his day that he 
was chosen first to adorn the Hall of Great Council in Venice 
in 1365 with a Paradise. He seems to have executed several 
works in this church, some allegories of the planets, and in the 
choir small scenes in monochrome of such subjects as Christ 
Crowned with Thorns, the Via Crucis, the Ecce Homo, and 
the Resurrection. A large Crucifixion is to be found above 
these, also from his hand. He seems to have been very little 
if at all influenced by Giotto. 

Close by the entrance of the church are two painted altars 
of terra-cotta by Giovanni Minello, that to the right with a 
sixteenth-century fresco. Near to these are the fine late 
Gothic tombs of Ubertino da Carrara (i 338-1 345) and 
Jacopo da Carrara (i 345-1 350), by Andreolo dei Santi, of 
Venice, from the church, now demolished, of S. Agostino. 

But when all is said, the great treasure of the church 
remains the frescoes of Mantegna, in the Cappella di SS. 
Jacopo and Cristoforo. Andrea Mantegna, the greatest of 
the Paduan painters, whose genius influenced almost every 
school of art in Italy, was the son of a certain Biagio, "a 
respectable citizen of Padua," and was born at Vicenza in 
143 1. He was adopted as son by Squarcione, the founder of 
the later Paduan school, in 1441, and married Nicolosa, the 
daughter of Jacopo Bellini, of Venice. This great man may 
have been influenced to some extent by his father-in-law, as 



256 VENICE AND YENETIA 

he certainly was by the work of Donatello and of Paolo 
UccellOj but he is among the most original masters who ever 
lived, combining a strong realism with a love of antiquity, and 
a profound feelmg for decoration with an extraordinary power 
over the expression of life. He is said to have painted a 
Madonna and Child for the High Altar of some church in 
Padua at the age of seventeen, but the earliest work of his 
that remains to us is a lunette dated 1452 in the Santo here. 
The most important and beautiful works of his youth, however, 
are the frescoes he painted in the chapel of SS. Jacopo and 
Cristoforo in the Eremitani. 

This chapel is painted in fresco by more than one hand. 
The Four Evangelists on the ceiling are doubtless the earliest 
as they are the feeblest part of the work ; like the four upper 
sections of the right wall, they are the work of some unknown 
and feeble scholars of Squarcione's school. The work on the 
walls and vaultings of the recesses of the choir are also by an 
inferior hand to Mantegna's, though they are able enough, 
probably by Niccolb Pizzolo, a Paduan painter who died when 
still young. The lower pictures on the right wall and all the 
work on the left are by Mantegna, and it is to these frescoes 
we shall now confine ourselves. 

The frescoes on the left wall are concerned with the life of 
S. James from his call by Our Lord to his martyrdom. They 
were painted between 1453 and 1459, and the upper scenes 
are the earlier. The execution and burial of S. Christopher, 
the lowest pictures on the right wall, are somewhat later work, 
but their sad condition does not allow us fully to enjoy them. 
It is in the pictures relating to S. James that we may best see 
the range and quality of Mantegna's art, his realistic simplicity, 
his mastery of action, his dignity of composition, and the 
monumental character of his figures, which might, indeed, all 
be portraits. Nor is it only in his figures — his children are 
delicious — that he shows himself to be the great master he is. 
In his treatment of architecture and ornament he shows him- 
self to have the finest knowledge of antiquity, and as 
a whole these works, so full of life, of learning, and of the 




MARTYRDOM OF S. CRISTOFORO 

ANDREA MANTEGXA 
( Eronitani, Padua) 



PADUA 257 

mastery of expression, are equally splendid as decoration. 
They fill the chapel with the spaciousness of the sky, with the 
fine proportions of great palaces, the splendour of great arches, 
and yet not for a moment do we wish a single figure, a single 
building, away or different. And the finish of these works 
remains as splendid as their conception. Yet we do not see 
them in anything of their freshness, but removed from the 
walls and transferred to canvas. 

Leaving the Eremitani by the Via Cittadella, which brings 
us into the Via Garibaldi, we turn back to the right, and, 
following the tram lines across the Ponte Molino, come into 
the Piazza Petrarca. Here is the church and convent of the 
Carmine. 

Petrarch, who, as we shall see, died among the Euganean 
hills at Arqua, spent much time in Padua. It was here 
Boccaccio found him in 1349 when he came on behalf of the 
Florentine Republic to offer the poet a chair in the new 
University. It was to this visit that Boccaccio alluded in a 
letter written to Petrarch from Ravenna in July, 1353. He 
there reminds his "best master" of his visit. " I think," he 
writes, " that you have not forgotten how, when less than three 
years ago I came to yoa in Padua, the ambassador of our 
Senate, my commission fulfilled, I remained with you for some 
days, and how that those days were all passed in the same 
way : you gave yourself to sacred studies, and I, desiring your 
compositions, copied them. When the day waned to sunset 
we left work and went into your garden, already filled by 
spring with flowers and leaves. . . . Now sitting, now talking, 
we passed what remained of the day in placid and delightful 
idleness, even till night." It is pleasant to think of these two 
poets passing up and down the Padua streets, talking of 
Dante, as one may feel sure Boccaccio did not fail to do, 
perhaps insisting on visiting his lodging in the Contrada S. 
Lorenzo, while Petrarch wondered why. 

The great church of the Carmine, which faces this piazza, 
was first built with its monastery in 1202. In 1300 it was 
rebuilt, and after earthquakes in 1470, 1503, and 1695 was 



258 VENICE AND YENETIA 

very considerably restored. It contains nothing of much 
interest. In the Scuola attached to it, entered from the 
cloister, however, there are several damaged frescoes of the 
sixteenth century from the hands of Titian, Girolamo da S. 
Croce, Domenico Campagnola, and Palma Vecchio. The 
fresco by Titian is a genuine work by the master, painted in 
151 1, representing the meeting of Joachim and Anna at the 
Beautiful Gate of the Temple. The landscape is still very 
fine, and the whole work is thoroughly Giorgionesque. 

Returning into the city by the Ponte Mohno, we notice a 
tower which Ecelino is said to have built in 1250, and which 
commemorates his tyranny in the city. Passing thence straight 
on by the Via Dante, we presently come to the Loggia del 
Consiglio, a fine Early Renaissance building, and turning there 
to the left into the Piazza Unita d' Italia, come a little further 
on into the Piazze dei Frutti and delle Erbe, where stand 
the sixteenth-century Palazzo del Municipio and the great 
Salone or Juris Basilica^ built in 1172-1219, the logge being 
added in 1306. 

This great hall is well worth a visit, for it is 273 feet long, 
90 feet broad, and 95 feet high. Among other things, it 
contains the wooden model of Donatello's horse for the 
Gattamelata statue by S. Antonio. At the end of the Piazza 
behind the Municipio is the University. 

Returning to the Via Dante, we follow it into the Piazza del 
Duomo, built by Andrea della Valle in 1551. It is an 
unfinished Late Renaissance building, and contains nothing 
of interest. In the Baptistery hard by, a fine building of the 
twelfth century, are some fourteenth-century frescoes attri- 
buted to Giusto Padovano. 

From the Duomo we return again through the Piazza delle 
Erbe till we come to the Via S. Francesco, out of which we 
turn almost at once on the right into the Via del Santo, which 
brings us straight into the Piazza del Santo before the great 
many-domed temple that has risen over the shrine of 
S. Antonio. 

Before the church stands one of the greatest equestrian 



PADUA 259 

statues in the world, Donatello's Gattamelata. It is a strange 
position to have selected for the monument of a great captain, 
this on the threshold of the shrine of a great saint. For 
Erasmo da Narni General Gattamelata was till his death in 
1443 a man of war, a condottiere in the service of the Vene- 
tians, who granted his family this site in Padua for the 
monument they wished to erect. And this equestrian statue 
which Donatello made was what they chose. Nothing more 
noble could be conceived, and Donatello's task was the 
more honourable on account of its difficulty. No equestrian 
statue had been made in bronze in Italy since the Empire. 
He had no model save the Marcus Aurelius at Rome and 
Nero's bronze horses in Venice. For about twenty years he 
laboured at it, with the result we see — a result which is beyond 
criticism, which we can only love and admire. The tombs 
of the great soldier and his son we shall find in the church. 
But what is this church, named, it might seem, so arrogantly 
II Santo ? To answer that question we must first ask who II 
Santo was. He was S. Antony of Padua. But that takes us 
little further, for the barest inquiry shows us that S. Antony 
was born at Lisbon in 1195, and, moreover, received at his 
christening the name of Ferdinand. This, however, he 
changed when he became a son of S. Francis for that of 
Antony, it is said from devotion to the great Abbot Anthony, 
the patriarch of monks ; for it was in a chapel under his 
invocation that S. Antony of Padua was received into the 
Franciscan Order. His father was an officer, by name Martin 
de Bullones, who fought in the army of El Consultador. As a 
youth Antony was one of the community of Canons of the 
Cathedral of Lisbon, where he had his schooling. But not 
long after he had, at the age of fifteen, " entered among the 
regular Canons of S. Austin"; he desired greater seclusion and 
silence, and so went to the Convent of the Holy Cross, 
belonging to the Order, at Coimbra. There he appears to 
have become enamoured of the ascetic life, and to have 
followed it during eight years. Suddenly a new idea came to 
him. Don Pedro, Infant of Portugal, about that time brought. 



26o VENICE AND VENETIA 

with what pomp and reverence we may imagine, the relics of 
five Franciscans, lately martyred, from Morocco. Antony was 
immediately possessed by an enthusiasm for that Order, desiring 
above all things to lay down his life in the cause of Our Lord. 
The Franciscans, seeing his enthusiasm, encouraged him to 
join them, a step from which naturally the Canons of Holy 
Cross endeavoured to dissuade him. But in all the struggles, 
both interior and with his fellows, that followed it was the 
poverty and austerity of the Franciscan Order that attracted him, 
and that in the end compelled him to desert the Canons. 

In 1 22 1 he, having obtained the consent of his prior, 
entered into the Franciscan Order, taking the name of 
Antony, and, consumed by his enthusiasm, he early set out 
for Africa, to seek martyrdom and to preach the Gospel. 
Illness obliged him to return to Spain. In this he saw the 
hand of God. For by chance the ship in which he sailed, baffled 
from its course by contrary winds, touched at Messina, where 
Antony heard that S. Francis, his hero, was holding a " general 
chapter " at Assisi. Thither he went in spite of his sickness, 
and having set eyes on the Little Poor Man he desired never 
again to leave him, and determined not only to forsake his 
friends but his country also that he might stay near S. Francis. 
No superior, however, would agree '' to be troubled " with him 
in his condition of illness, till at length a certain Gratiani, 
from Romagna, sent him to a hermitage on Monte Paolo, near 
Bologna. Here he buried himself in silence, permitting 
neither his learning nor his communications with God to 
be so much as guessed at ; till one day the Franciscans were 
entertaining some Dominican Friars, and the Franciscan 
superior, wishing to show his guests honour, desired one of 
them " to make an exhortation to the company." But they 
all made excuse, saying they were unprepared. Then the 
superior desired Antony to speak just as God should direct 
him, and he too begged to be excused, saying that he had 
only been used to wash the dishes in the kitchen and to 
sweep the house. However, he was commanded to proceed 
under holy obedience, and all were astonished, not alone at 



PADUA 261 

his humility but at his eloquence and learning. All this came 
to the ears of S. Francis, who sent Antony to Vercelli to study 
and to teach. Later we find him at Bologna, Padua, Toulouse, 
and Montpellier. But soon he forsook the schools for preach- 
ing, and in this his mission he passed through many lands, 
making many converts and performing many miracles. At 
last he came face to face with the great devil of the time, 
Ecelino da Romano. This fiend in human shape had mur- 
dered more than 11,000 persons in Padua in one day, and the 
city of Verona, too, had "through him lost most of its 
inhabitants." Antony without fear confronted him and told 
him his crimes, when, instead of ordering his guards to 
murder the saint, "to their great astonishment Ecelino 
descended from his throne, pale and trembHng, and, putting 
his girdle round his own neck as a halter, cast himself at the 
feet of the humble servant of God, and with many tears 
begged him to intercede with God for the pardon of his sins. 
The saint lifted him up and gave him suitable advice to do 
penance. Ecelino seemed for some time to have changed his 
conduct, but after the death of the saint relapsed into his 
former disorders." Well might Pope Gregory IX call Antony 
the Ark of the Covenant, well may the people of Padua call 
him II Santo. 

Antony's last years were unhappy on account of the 
divisions in the Order then after S. Francis's death suffering 
from Frate Elias. We hear of a visit to La Verna, in Tus- 
cany, where S. Francis received the Stigmata, and a little 
later we find him provincial in Romagna. But presently he 
retired to Padua, and died there on 13 June, 1231, in his 
thirty-seventh year. At the news of his death we hear the 
children ran about the streets crying, " II Santo e morto." 
He was canonized by Gregory IX in the following year, and 
about thirty years later the great Church of II Santo was built 
in Padua, and his relics were there interned. 

That might seem an uneventful life, in spite of the encounter 
with Ecelino, to call forth so huge a church, containing, as it 
does, chapels belonging to all nations, till we remember that 



262 VENICE AND VENETIA 

St. Antony's career really began with his death. The great 
fact about him for us all is that he finds what is lost, some- 
times for love and always at a very reasonable rate, and that 
he devotes these offerings as often as not to the poor. This 
fact explains at once the vast and ugly church which so hugely 
covers his poor bones. 

Huge as it is, however, and ugly, it contains very little 
worth the trouble of seeing, but that little is most precious. 
For instance, over the main door in a lunette is a fresco by 
Mantegna of S. Bernardino and S. Antony holding the mono- 
gram of Our Lord. Within the church are two fine holy water 
basins, perhaps by Tullio Lombardo. By the second pillar, 
on the right, is the simple monument of a very ornate person- 
age, Cardinal Bembo. The church is curiously full, too, of 
the tombs of Venetian generals. Alessandro Contarini lies in 
a sumptuous tomb by the second pillar on the left. In the 
first chapel, on the right. General Gattamelata sleeps in a 
fine tomb by Donatello, or rather by some pupil, perhaps 
Bellano of Padua. The same man made the tomb here of 
Gattamelata's son, Giovanni. In the left aisle, close to the 
Cappella del Santo, sleeps Caterina Cornaro. 

The Cappella del Santo, a late Renaissance work, has little 
attraction save the religious. The Cappella S. FeUce opposite, 
formerly S. Jacopo, was built in 1372 by Andreola dei Santi, 
of Venice, but it was dreadfully restored in 1773. It possesses 
a fine altar with statues of the Madonna and Child with saints 
of 1503, and is still decorated with frescoes of 1376 by 
Altichieri and Jacopo d' Avanzo of Verona, but very much 
restored. They are, however, by far the most interesting 
paintings in the church. 

The great treasure of II Santo is, however, the choir with its 
marble screen, designed by Donatello, and the High Altar, 
originally a design of the same master's, and still possessing 
his original sculptures and bronzes. It was for this work that 
Donatello came to Padua in 1443. Later he was commis- 
sioned to design and cast the Gattamelata, and altogether he 
was some ten years in the city. 



PADUA 263 

Beside II Santo is the Scuola, the house of the Guild of 
S. Antony. This hall was decorated with seventeen frescoes, 
of which three were by Titian, but they have all been restored 
in oil, and it would be hard to discover Titian's hand there 
now. 

Close by is the Cappella S. Giorgio, once the burial chapel 
of the Marchesi di Sovagna, built in 1377. It contains some 
very splendid frescoes by Altichieri and Jacopo d' Avanzo of 
Verona, representing the story of S. Lucy, the story of S. 
Catherine, and the story of S. George, with the Crucifixion, 
the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin, the Flight into Egypt, 
the Adoration of the Magi, and the Nativity. 

Next door is the Museo, which contains so little of interest 
as to be scarcely worth a visit if it were not for a Madonna 
and Child by Marco Basaiti, an injured altarpiece by Squar- 
cione, a S. Patrick by Tiepolo, a large altarpiece by Romanino, 
and a few other interesting works. Far better worth visiting is 
the vast Church of S. Giustina, which, beside some interesting 
relics of old time, proudly shown by the sacristan, has a 
splendid altarpiece, the Martyrdom of S. Justina, by Paolo 
Veronese. 



XIX 

TWO POETS AND THE EUGANEAN 

HILLS 

THERE is one journey that, if only in memory of two 
dead poets, all must make who stay more than a single 
day in Padua. It is a journey to the Euganean hills, and the 
two poets such a pilgrimage will commemorate are, of course, 
Petrarch and Shelley. But such a journey made with due 
piety will be something more than a duty performed, it will 
be in a very real way its own reward. For of all the various 
country of Venetia, of sea and seashore and delicate visionary 
island, of mountain, valley, and plain, nothing may compare 
for sheer loveliness with these Euganean hills which beckon 
one so mysteriously from Venice, and which fill every vista 
of the plain with their strange and mysterious beauty, where 

" Beneath is spread like a green sea 
The waveless plain of Lombardy, 
Bounded by the vaporous air, 
Islanded by cities fair. ..." 

It was with these lines in my head that one morning when 
the sun was shining after many days of rain I set out from 
Padua by Barriera Vittorio Emanuele for Battaglia, Arqua, 
and Este. The road was broad, straight, and flat, but the world 
was refreshed, the day young, and all the flowers in the world 
seemed to have come to meet me. So that for all the monotony 
of the plain I was not weary, but took courage and lifted mine 

eyes to the hills, ever growing clearer and more lovely as I 

264 



TWO POETS 265 

approached them ; and before midday in very good spirits 
I came to Battaglia^ where I ate frugally but well, and setting 
out again presently turned out of the straight road west- 
ward, and a little after found myself at the foot of the 
delectable mountains, which, after I had passed a little lake, 
I began to climb, and before long found myself in Arqua 
Petrarca. 

Now to describe the beauty of this place, and the hills, 
in a valley of which it lies, has been the vain attempt of so 
many of my betters, from Disraeli to Gabriele D' Annunzio, 
that I shall content myself with bringing the reader hither, 
giving him what information he should need, and perhaps 
quoting for my own delight a few lines of Petrarch's, a few 
verses of Shelley. Arqua is still what it was when Petrarch 
in his old age first saw it and fell in love with it, a little 
mountain village and a gracious fountain : 

" Fonti numen inest ; hospes, venerare liquorem 
Unde bibens cecinit digna Petrarcha Deis." 

What fame it has — and since mere beauty is too common in 
Italy to attract the notice we give it at home, it would other- 
wise be but little renowned — what fame it has it owes all to 
Petrarch. 

That noble, lofty but pedantic poet found here the peace 
which he had sought in vain his whole successful life long, 
and here amid his roses in July, 1374, he died. 

It was in the year 1369 that Petrarch had found out this 
village in the Euganean hills which ever after became his 
summer residence, where, indeed, he seems, with his usual 
generosity, to have kept open house, with something more of 
lavishness than might be looked for in a "simple canon." 
The Pope, Gregory XI, a Frenchman, loving him well, seems, 
indeed, to have been anxious about him, and instructed Fran- 
cesco Bruno to write and inquire how he did. Petrarch 
answers that his means are sufficient for a simple canon, 
but since he has, as he can most truly say, a wider circle 
)f acquaintance than all the rest of the Chapter together, he 



266 VENICE AND YENETIA 



111 



has very many unforeseen expenses. Besides an old priest 
who lives with him a whole swarm of these acquaintances, 
will often suddenly descend upon him, and he has not the 
heart to turn them away without their dinner. Then, too, he 
finds he cannot do without servants, a couple of horses, and 
five or six scribes. Then he is building a little chapel to the 
Blessed Virgin, and he must accompHsh this though he should 
be compelled to sell even his books. So he is rather pinched, 
and age makes pinching the harder. Therefore if Gregory is 
minded to do something for him he will not say nay. This 
letter — so characteristic of Petrarch, he will ask for nothing, but, 
as he had ever done, accept what God sends him — was written 
from Arqua at Whitsuntide, 1371. That was his third summer 
there. At first, in 1369, he had stayed in the convent of 
the Austin Friars, and it was then he was so taken with the 
beauty of the place that he got one of his friends to buy on 
his behalf a plot of ground with a vineyard, a garden of olives, 
and a little orchard. There he built the house we still see 
above the village on the hill-side under the castello which in 
his day, unspoilt and unbroken, crowned the summit of the 
hill. Here he spent his old age, which was already come 
upon him. He was continually ailing and constantly ready 
for death. 

In 1372, however, he had to leave Arqua, for war had 
broken out between Francesco da Carrara and Venice, and 
the country was full of marauders. Francesco, as we know, 
was compelled to surrender, and when called upon to plead 
before the Venetian Senate he sent his son to Petrarch to ask 
him to plead for him. Petrarch was much loved in Padua 
and had received many kindnesses from the Carrara House. 
He tried, in fact, to help his friend, but was too ill to speak 
on the day appointed, though his speech was delivered well 
enough on the following day. This unhappy affair can only 
have distressed him to the utmost. For Francesco was not 
only his friend, but in some sort his pupil, and it was to him 
that Petrarch had addressed the long letter on government, 
" on the best methods of administering a State," in which, 



TWO POETS 267 

knowing the House of Carrara, we may think he lays great 
stress upon the moral qualities necessary to a good ruler. 

In Arqua, doubtless, too, in his quiet chair at night between 

the vines, and under the olives at morning or at evening, he 

composed that letter to Posterity which makes so noble an 

autobiography, so pathetic a plea, too, for remembrance, 

" what sort of man I was and what was the outcome of my 

works." There we read of his home at Arqua: "In one of 

ithe Euganean hills," he writes, "near ten miles from the city 

' of Padua, I have built me a house, small, but pleasant and 

decent, in the midst of slopes clothed with vines and olives, 

'abundantly sufficient for a family not large and discreet. 

Here I lead my life, and although, as I have said, infirm 

of body, yet tranquil of mind, without excitements, without 

distractions, without cares, reading always and writing and 

praising God, and thanking God as well for evil as for good ; 

-which evil, if I err not, is trial merely, not punishment, and 

' all the while I pray to Christ that He make good the end of 

my life, and have mercy on me and forgive me and even 

forget my youthful sins ; wherefore, in this solitude no words 

^are so sweet to my lips as those of the psalm, '' Delicta juven- 

tutis meae : et ignorantias meas ne memifierts.^ And with every 

feeUng of the heart I pray God when it pleases Him to bridle 

my thoughts, so long unstable and erring ; and as they have 

'vainly wandered to many things, to turn them all to Him — 

'the only true, certain, immutable Good." 

^. Such was Petrarch at Arqua, blessed in the quietness which 

''led him thus so perfectly to God. Nor is this merely a 

mood. His letters to all his friends are full of such words, 

bonly less beautiful than when he spoke them to himself and 

^to us. To his best friend, and, in so much, his most devoted 

t disciple, Giovanni Boccaccio, he writes in the same way : 

' "You write that my ill-health makes you sad; I know it and 

5 am not surprised, for neither of us can be really well while the 

ii other is ailing What I should really like is, not to be 

!J younger than I am, but to feel that I had reached old age by 
I a course of more honourable deeds and pursuits ; and nothing 



268 VENICE AND VENETIA 

disturbs me more than that in all this long while I have not 
reached the goal I ought to have reached. . . . There is no 
nimbler or more delightful burden than the pen ; other 
pleasures flee away and do you a mischief even while they 
soothe you ; but your pen soothes you in the taking up and 
delights you in the laying down of it ; and it works profit not 
only to its master but to many beside, often even to the 
absent, and sometimes to posterity after thousands of years. 
I think I speak absolute truth when I say that of all earthly 
delights as there is none more honourable than literature, 
so there is none more lasting or sweeter or more constant; 
none which plays the comrade to its possessor with so easily 
gotten an equipment and with so little irksomeness. . . . This 
do I desire for myself, that when death overtakes me he 
may find me either reading or writing or, if Christ so wills 
it, praying and in tears." 

Petrarch had his wish ; the best supported account of his 
death tells us that he died in his library turning the pages 
of his " De Viris Illustribus " on the morning of his seventieth 
birthday. 

What his death meant to his friends we may gather best, 
I think, from that wonderful letter of Boccaccio's which he 
wrote to Francesco da Brossano, Petrarch's son-in-law. In 
reading it we may realize perhaps what manner of man 
Petrarch was. 

Boccaccio, ill and himself not far from death, writes as one 
heart-broken : " I received your sorrowful letter, most well- 
beloved brother . . . and not knowing the writing I broke 
the seal and looked for the name of the writer, and as soon 
as I read your name I knew what news you had to tell me, 
that is to say, the happy passing of our illustrious father and 
master, Francesco Petrarca, from the earthly Babylon to the 
heavenly Jerusalem. Although none of my friends had written 
me save you, since everyone spoke of it I had known it for 
some time — to my great sorrow — and during many days I 
wept almost without ceasing, not at his ascension, but for 
myself thus unhappy and abandoned. And that is not won- 



TWO POETS 269 

derful, for no one in the world loved him more than I . . . . 
You say that he has ended his days at the village of Arqua 
in the co?itado of Padua ; that he wished his ashes to remain 
always in that village, and that to commemorate him for ever 
a rich and splendid tomb is there to be built. Alas ! I admit 
my crime — if it can be called a crime. I who am a Floren- 
tine grudge Arqua this shining good fortune that has befallen 
her, rather through his humility than through her merit — the 
guardianship of the body of the man whose soul has been the 
favourite dwelling-place of the Muses and of all Helicon. . . . 
It follows that not only Arqua, almost unknown even to the 
Paduans, will now be known to all foreign nations however far 
off, but that her name will be held in honour by the whole 
universe. One will honour thee, Arqua as without seeing 
them we honour in our thoughts the hill of Posilipo at the 
foot of which are placed the bones of Virgil . . . and Smyrna, 
where Homer sleeps, and other like places. ... I do not 
doubt that the sailor returning laden with riches from the 
^farthest shores of the sea, sailing the Adriatic and seeing afar 
the venerable summits of the Euganean Hills, will say to him- 
jself or to his friends : ' These hills guard in their breast the 
glory of the universe, him who was once the triumph of all 
knowledge, Petrarch, the poet of sweet words, who by the 
Consular Senate was crowned in the Mother City with the 
laurel of triumph, and whose many beautiful works still pro- 
claim his inviolable renown.' The black Indian, the fierce 
Spaniard . . . seized with admiration for this sacred name 
will one day come and before the tomb of so great a man 
,salute with respect and piety the ashes which it holds, com- 
plaining the while of their misfortune that they should not 
:have seen him living whom dead they visit. Alas ! my 
unhappy city, to whom it has not been given to guard the 
lashes of so illustrious a son, to whom so splendid a glory 
has been refused ; it is true that thou art unworthy of such 
,an honour, thou hast neglected to draw him to thee when 
he was alive and to give him that place in thy heart which he 
merited. Ah ! had he been an artisan of crimes, a contriver of 



270 VENICE AND VENETIA 

treason, a past-master in avarice, envy, and bitter ingratitude, 
thou wouldst have called him to thee. Yet even as thou art 
I should prefer that this honour had been accorded thee rather 
than Arqua. . . . But since God has wished it let the name 
of Arqua live through the centuries, and let her inhabitants 
preserve always an honour for which they should indeed be 
thankful. ..." 

Florence, however, who had expelled Dante, threatened 
him with death, and had seen him buried with honour at 
Ravenna, was not to be so easily resigned to the loss Boccaccio 
bemoans, though in truth since she expelled Petrarch's father 
and confiscated his goods she deserved nothing else. Petrarch 
was buried at Arqua with much ceremony, his coffin was borne 
by sixteen Doctors of Law, and four Bishops took part in the 
funeral. He was laid temporarily in the parish church till, six 
years later, a sarcophagus was made in Padua. For many 
years Florence watched, hiding her envy and her shame. 
But one day in 1630, when the tomb had fallen into disrepair, 
a certain monk, or friar, more like, named Tommaso Mar- 
tinelli, attempted to steal the body, and actually brought away 
with him to Florence one of the dead poet's arms, which is 
said now to be in Madrid. Petrarch no more than Boccaccio 
— the one for love, the other for hate — was allowed to rest in 
his grave. 

There is really very little to be seen within the old house 
that indubitably was Petrarch's : a few poor frescoes concerned 
with his life, his bedroom, which is said to be as it was in his 
day, his study with his broken chair, table, inkstand, and — his 
stuffed cat. These are all, and these remind us less of him 
than the landscape does, the byways of the village, the 
tender vines and quiet gardens, and the beautiful hills he 
loved. It is to these we shall be wise to give ourselves ; to 
these and to the road which will presently lead us down into 
the valley beyond Arqua, and winding about Monte del Cas- 
tello bring us through Baone to Este on the southern skirts 
of the Euganean, where another poet had for a brief summer 
his home. 



TWO POETS 271 

The villa I Cappuccini, which may still be seen, was lent 
to Shelley by Byron, who had rented it as a summer residence 
for himself. Writing to Rogers on 3 March, 18 18, Byron says: 
"The villa you speak of is one at Este which Mr. Hoppner 
(Consul- General here) has transferred to me. I have taken it 
for two years as a place of villeggiatura. The situation is very 
beautiful indeed, among the Euganean hills, and the house 
is very fair. The vines are luxuriant to a great degree, and 
all the fruits of the earth abundant. It is close to the old 
castle of the Estes or Guelphs, and within a few miles of 
:Arqua, which I have visited twice and hope to visit again." 

Writing from Venice, where, leaving Mrs. Shelley at the 
Bagni di Lucca, he had gone to meet Byron, Shelley writes 
to his wife in the late summer of that year : ". . ., Pray come 
instantly to Este, where I shall be waiting in the utmost 
anxiety for your arrival. You can pack up directly you get 
this letter and employ the next day on that. The day after 
get up at four o'clock and go post to Lucca, where you will 
arrive at six. Then take a vettiirino for Florence, to arrive the 
jsame evening. From Florence to Este is three days' vetturmo 
journey — and you could not, I think, do it quicker by the post. 
Make Paolo take you to good inns, as we found very bad 
-ones ; and pray avoid the Tre Mori at Bologna, perche vi sono 
cose inespressibili nei letti. I do not think you can, but try 
-to get from Florence to Bologna in one day. Do not take 
the post, for it is not much faster and very expensive. . . ." 

That letter tells us that travelling in Italy was of old as 

-leisurely a business as one could wish. 

J In a letter to Peacock, dated Este, 8 October, 181 8, Shelley 

-says : " We have been living this last month near the little 

:town from which I date this letter, in a very pleasant villa 

which has been lent to us. . . . Behind us here are the 

tEuganean hills, not so beautiful as those of the Bagni di 

Lucca, with Arqua, where Petrarch's house and tomb are 

.religiously preserved and visited. At the end of our garden 

;;.is an extensive Gothic castle, now the habitation of owls and 

bats, where the Medici family resided before they came to 



272 VENICE AND VENETIA 

Florence. We see before us the wide, flat plains of Lom- 
bardy, in which we see the sun and moon rise and set, and 
the evening star, and all the golden magnificence of autumnal 
clouds. ... I have been writing, and indeed have just 
finished, the first act of a lyric and classical drama to be 
called 'Prometheus Unbound.'" 

On 7 November Shelley left Este for Naples. He had 
written something more than the first act of the " Pro- 
metheus " at Este, he had composed the " Lines Written 
among the Euganean Hills," and there we find, as we might 
expect, one of those strangely vivid pictures that none knew 
better how to paint of the world that lay before his eyes in 
those quiet autumn days : — 

*'Noon descends around me now : 
'Tis the noon of autumn's glow, 
When a soft and purple mist 
Like a vaporous amethyst, 
Or an air-dissolved star 
Mingling light and fragrance, far 
From the curved horizon's bound 
To the point of heaven's profound, 
Fills the overflowing sky ; 
And the plains that silent lie 
Underneath ; the leaves unsodden 
Where the infant frost has trodden 
With his morning-winged feet 
Whose bright print is gleaming yet ; 
And the red and golden vines 
Piercing with their trellised lines 
The rough dark-skirted wilderness ; 
The dun and bladed grass no less, 
Pointing from this hoary tower 
In the windless air ; the flower 
Glimmering at my feet ; the line 
Of the olive-sandalled Apennine 
In the south dimly islanded ; 
And the Alps, whose snows are spread 
High between the clouds and sun ; 
And of living things each one ; 
And my spirit, which so long 
Darkened this swift stream of song, — 



TWO POETS 273 

Interpenetrated lie 

By the glory of the sky ; 

Be it love, light, harmony. 

Odour, or the soul of all 

Which from heaven like dew doth fall 

Or the mind which feeds this verse 

Peopling the lone universe." 

Yes, it is the memories of two such minds, of two poets, 
which people for us the Euganean hills. We forget all about 
that castle, " now the habitation of owls and bats," where 
Shelley thought the Medici Jived before they came to Florence; 
and though it was indeed the home of a greater race than the 
Medici, who, in fact, never knew it — of a race from which 
most of the royal families of Europe have originated, sprung 
from Alberto Azzo, Marquis of Este, himself descended from 
the Adalbati Margraves of Tuscany, we think not of it, for 
this ground is holy with the footsteps of two of those who 
have revealed to us so much of what is worth having in our 
own souls, that here, at any rate, we can only remind our- 
selves of them. 

" In the deep umbrage of a green hill's shade 
Which shows a distant prospect far away, 
Of busy cities now in vain display'd, 
For they can lure no further ; and the ray 
Of a bright sun can make sufficient holiday." 



XX 

VICENZA 

N his journeyings about Italy to-day, and especially in this 
northern Italy, so largely composed of a vast plain and 
lacking in the mystery and surprise of the hills, it is hard to 
find or to recover the Italy of our dreams, the country that 
Claude knew well and that somewhere in the heart of every 
Northerner is hidden away with heaven, a place perhaps that 
modern " progress " has reduced to a superstition and a vain 
desire. Yet I think that Italy of our hearts is to be found, 
and indeed I can swear that once or twice it seems to me that 
I have seen it, in Tuscany, in Umbria, in the Roman Cam- 
pagna ; but to look for it in Venetia, to hope for it even, had, 
I confess, little by little come to seem to me ridiculous. That 
was before I had seen Vicenza. Vicenza is the place itself. 

I was to blame : I know it. I had come to Venetia with 
Tuscany in my heart — what could I have expected ? If a man 
has given himself to the hills it is not in Lombardy or Venetia 
he should waste his time. Little by little I had come to realize 
that. I grew weary : first of the mud, then of the dust, then 
of the endless vista of every road, the lack of variety, the 
damnable iteration of city after city, all of the plain and all of 
a piece. I was home-sick for the outlines of Tuscany, the hills 
of olives, that are silver in the wind, over the golden corn, the 
terraces of vines, the line of cypresses against the olives. And 
in Venetia I found only a world illimitable in which I was a 
shadow. 

It was in that hour on a fair summer morning that I came 

274 





-^j._ .. ^.. 



^ 



VICENZA 



VICENZA 275 

to Vicenza. I found it as a child finds an overlooked gift 
long forgotten out of mind. It gave me back my heart. No 
one writes of Vicenza though it is famous, no one speaks of it 
though it is a household word, no one goes to it though it is 
on the highway. Its name is as familiar in the mouth as Padua 
is, yet it stands for nothing. It is a halt on the road to Venice 
as Verona is, and far more obvious and ready to hand than 
Mantua, yet no one marks it. And while Padua, Verona, and 
Mantua have come to be synonyms for some of the greater 
names in the true history of the world, so that he who says 
Padua, Verona, and Mantua says S. Antony, Romeo and 
Juliet, and Virgil, he who says Vicenza says nothing ; nothing 
universal, that is, nothing that is as familiar in Rome as in 
Britain, as secure in the Teutonic as in the Latin heart. 

That cannot now be mended. Whatever we may do Padua, 
Verona, Mantua, and Venice will echo in our ears from the 
verse of Shakespeare while the word Vicenza will be unheard. 
It is part of the irony of things as they are, that while Padua 
is exalted Vicenza should be unknown. Yet such a fate has 
its compensations. You and I, for instance, march into Padua 
expecting infinite wonders. Wonders we perceive, but are they 
to be named beside the imagination of our hearts ? We make 
pilgrimage to the city of Juliet expecting I know not what 
revelation of beauty. Nor can we remain there unmoved ; 
and yet who that has sojourned in that busy place with its 
vast entanglement of trams, its extraordinary distances, its 
terrific new square with its brand new statue of Vittorio 
Emanuele that dwarfs the very Arena of the Romans, who 
that has endured these things has not been discouraged, has 
not returned almost in tears to the pages of Shakespeare con- 
vinced, and more than convinced, that there alone may 
Verona truly be found? 

Now here is the compensation of Vicenza : the incredible 
good fortune promised by the gods in half a hundred fairy 
tales from Cinderella downwards and on every living page of 
the Gospels, as : the meek shall inherit the earth, the last shall 
be first. 



276 VENICE AND VENETIA 

Thus is it written and thus it is. You enter Padua with 
trembling, Venice with what life has left you of an outworn 
reverence, Verona prepared to be impressed; but you come 
to Vicenza as to any jolly town of God's world without a 
thought about it most like, seeking food to stay your need and 
a bed to rest in. And because you have demanded nothing 
she gives you her whole heart. 

Now the history of Vicenza, though it is not of history we 
think in coming to her, may be told here in a few words, for it 
is one with that of all these cities of the Veneto. Like Padua 
first she was a free commune, then, like Padua again, she fell 
into Ecelino's hands. In 1236 Frederic II took her by storm, 
and when he was departed she fell under the yoke of Padua in 
the time of the Carraresi. Then Can Grande of Verona seized 
her in 131 1, and in 1387 she came for a time into the power 
of the Visconti before she found peace under the benign 
dominion of the Republic of Venice in 1404. Such is her 
history. But her story in so far as we may read it to-day is 
full of peace. As we wander up and down her quiet streets, 
in and out of her shadowy churches, looking up at her vast 
palaces, wondering at her great theatre, charmed by her meek 
pictures, her extraordinary air of aloofness and quiet, it is not of 
Ecelino and Carrara and Can Grande and Visconti we think, 
indeed we are scarcely reminded of them, but of two of her 
own sons who in a better and more enduring, if quieter, way 
have given her her character, a character which is as visible 
and remarkable to-day as ever it was. Bartolommeo Montagna 
and Andrea Palladio are the names that remain in your heart 
when you have done with Vicenza, and you are not likely to 
forget them. 

But in triith most of us who are lucky enough to have found 
out Vicenza came to her first thinking little of Montagna and 
not over eager to see the work of Palladio ; yet I think no one 
has entered her gates but has loved her at first sight, and this 
I attribute for my part not to any man at all but to God. He 
put her just where she is, and, rightly understood, that is her 
secret. 



VICENZA 277 

Consider then : here is a man who has spent many a month 
in Venice, who has continually passed up and down the great 
plain between the Piave and the Po, and who after so long, 
unless indeed he be a Venetian, is weary of all this illimitable 
world, this vast tyranny of sun and sky and cloud, who would 
willingly go barefoot if he might but climb a hill, who is home- 
sick for the mountains, for something of earth visibly to break 
the monotony of the horizon. 

Such a man but whets his appetite at Arquk and Este. He 
is upon the hills it is true, and very far off they shine and 
shine and disappear each night and day, but all about him is 
the great plain, "the waveless plain of Lombardy." Now 
conceive such a man setting out any fair morning from Padua 
along the great road that runs north-west, a little south of the 
railway but north of the river Bacchiglione. All the long day 
he sees little enough but green, he creeps and crawls along in 
the dust of the way, he is subject to every hedgerow and com- 
mands nothing. At night he comes into Vicenza. In the 
morning up he gets and up he looks. His heart stands still, 
tears fill his eyes. In his sleep the hills have heard him and 
come about him : and there to the north they stand splendid 
and terrible, and there to the south they stand soft and lovely, 
and he may take his fill of them. Is it any wonder that for 
such a man Vicenza seems in some way to be divine ? She 
has given him the desire of his heart. 

Standing thus on the flank of the mountains that here are 
thrust into the plain and attempt to cross it in the great step- 
ping-stones of the Monti Berici and the Colli Euganei, Vicenza 
holds a true valley though it knows no river, the valley between 
the great mountains and the Monti Berici : and her true sign 
is the great Temple of Madonna, on a spur of those hills, the 
Madonna del Monte, which beckons for twenty miles or so 
across the plain and signals where she stands. 

Coming from the railway station between the hills and the 
city one enters Vicenza by the Porta del Castello, where to the 
left is a great old tower of the Scaligers, now the campanile of 
a church. Once within the gate the one great street, the Corso, 



278 VENICE AND VENETIA 

leaves the Piazza di Castello there and runs quite through 
the city to the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele and the Porta degli 
Angeh. By following this way and leaving it now and then a 
few paces right or left all that is most notable in Vicenza may 
be seen in one long morning. 

To begin with the Piazza del Castello : on the right is the 
Palazzo Giulio Porto, known as the Casa del Diavolo, a great 
unfinished building by Palladio. It strikes as it were the 
keynote of the whole town, pre-eminently Palladian as it 
is. We begin with the work of this great man as we shall 
end with it. 

Palladio was born in Vicenza in 15 18 and died here in 1580. 
He was the founder of that style of architecture modelled on 
Roman work or developed from it as taught by Vitruvius, 
which has had, I suppose, after the decadence of pointed 
architecture, the greatest influence on the architects of all 
countries. Certainly in England Inigo Jones and Christopher 
Wren were Palladio's followers, the former even prepared notes 
for an English translation of the " Quattro Libri dell' Architet- 
tura," published in 1715. 

In Venice we see Palladio mainly as a builder of churches, 
in his native city we see him as a builder of palaces, and what- 
ever we, at the mercy of our time, may think of his work no 
one^ I imagine, will be found to deny it an impressiveness and 
nobility which he owed less, it might seem, to Vitruvius than 
to his own genius. No man who sets out to revive in different 
and new conditions an ancient art can escape the curse of 
all such artificialities, I mean a lack of spontaneity. What is 
surprising here in Vicenza is the vitality of so much Palladio 
resurrected. 

Goethe, saturated with the classical tradition, and at that 
time indifferent to the work of the Middle Age, writes during 
his Italian travels of Palladio as " a man really and intrinsically 
great, and whose greatness is manifest in his work. There is 
(he says) something indeed divine in Palladio's designs, which 
may be compared to the creations of a great poet. . . ." Well, 
perhaps so. Perhaps we might compare Palladio's work with 



VICENZA 279 

Virgil's : but that would leave us begging the whole question. 
For I do not think we can compare the derived, adapted, and 
imitative art of Palladio with that of the Greeks or the Gothic 
builders any more than we may compare the JEne'vd with the 
Odyssey, or for that matter with Shakespeare's plays. Never- 
theless in Vicenza it is possible to enjoy Palladio's work without 
an afterthought, for here he is concerned almost altogether 
with domestic work ; and as a builder of palaces he is, I think, 
largely successful. As a church builder we have too many 
incomparable and innocent things in our hearts to bear with 
the weight of his reminiscences, the cunning of his adaptations, 
the futile learning that obscured his genius. His native city, 
however, with all piety helps her son out, and as you pass 
through Vicenza, not too eager maybe to appreciate his work, 
you will be continually charmed by the beauty that the people 
of Vicenza have bestowed upon it : lightening it with a wealth 
of verdure, a tiny ^osco of trees seen through a great portico, a 
vision of bright flowers filling a heavy courtyard, a sense of 
space and air given to a shadowy opening by the flash and 
sound of a fountain running with water. 

If as we pass down the Corso we turn into the Strada Loschi 
on the right, we shall find ourselves before the Duomo of 
Vicenza, a broad and low Gothic church with a Renaissance 
choir and little indeed to recommend it. Little, but at least 
this : a picture of the Death of the Virgin by Lorenzo Vene- 
ziano in the fifth chapel on the right, and in the fourth chapel 
to the left some frescoes by Bartolommeo Montagna. 

Bartolommeo Montagna is the most remarkable of the 
painters of Vicenza. He was not born, it seems, within the 
city, but certainly established himself there and belongs to the 
Vicenza school, if indeed that city can rightly be said to have 
had a school of painting. He came first into prominence in 
1470 and developed under the influence of Carpaccio and the 
Bellini, though he is generally regarded as a pupil of Man- 
tegna. His work is, however, original in character, and as 
quiet as an Umbrian's, possessing strange qualities of gem- 
hke colour which belong to it alone. His work is the most 



28o VENICE AND VENETIA 

characteristic in Vicenza, and in any memory of the city it is 
his pictures we recall. 

Returning to the Corso, which we continue to follow, we 
pass on the left the Palazzo Thiene, and then the Casino 
Vecchio and the Palazzo da Schio, fine Gothic buildings of 
the fifteenth century : on the right we see the Palazzo Porto, a 
work by Scamozzi, of the seventeenth century. The last two 
are beyond the crossing of the Contrada Cavour, which leads 
to the great Piazza de' Signori, with its Venetian columns and 
vast Basilica Palladiana, a huge palace consisting of two stories, 
the lower Doric, the upper Ionic, an early work by Palladio 
but extended after him and not finished till 1614, enclosing 
the Gothic Palazzo della Ragione. Here, too, is the Loggia 
del Capitano, built by Palladio in 1571, and various other 
public buildings of much later date. 

Returning to the Corso, and following it to the end, we 
come to the Casa di Palladio and the great Palazzo Chiericati, 
which I take to be the master's masterpiece in the way of 
palaces, but which was restored in 1855. Close by, on the 
opposite side of the Piazza, is the Teatro Olimpico, begun by 
Palladio in 1579 and completed by Scamozzi, when it was 
opened with a performance of the CEdipus Tyrannus of 
Sophocles. 

Mr. Evelyn thus describes these buildings : " Vincenza is a 
citty . . . full of gentlemen and splendid palaces, to which 
ye famous Palladio, borne here, has exceedingly contributed, 
having ben the architect. Most conspicuous is the Hall of 
Justice (Palazzo della Ragione) ; it has a toure of excellent 
work ; the lower pillars are of the first order ; those of the 
three upper corridors are Doric; under them are shops in a 
spacious piazza. The hall was built in imitation of that at 
Padoa, but of a nobler designe, a la moderna. The next morn- 
ing we visited ye theatre, as being of that kind the most perfect 
now standing, and built by Palladio in exact imitation of the 
ancient Romans, and capable of containing 5,000 spectators. 
The sceane, which is all of stone, represents an imperial citty, 
ye order Corinthian decorated with statues. Over the scenario 




FIVE SAINTS 

MONTAGNA 
^S. Corona, Vice ma) 



VICENZA 281 

is inscribed, * Virtuti ac Genio Olympior : Academia Theatrum 
hoc a fundamentis erexit Palladio Architect: 1584.' The 
sceane decHnes 1 1 foote, the suffito painted with cloudes. To 
this there joynes a spacious hall for sollemn days to ballot in, 
and a second for Academics. In ye Piazza is also the podesta 
or governour's house, \hQfaciata being of ye Corinthian order, 
very noble." 

A later traveller, and one trained to appreciate to the 
utmost the intention of Palladio, speaks thus of the teatro : 
*' The Olympic Theatre is a theatre of the ancients, restored 
on a small scale, and indescribably beautiful. Compared with 
our theatres, however, it reminds one of a genteel, rich, well- 
bred child contrasted with a shrewd man of the world, who, 
though neither as rich nor genteel nor well-bred, knows better 
how to employ his resources." With this verdict of Goethe 
we may well agree. He has spoken our very thought. A 
theatre to-day is not really a work of art; its aim is not 
beauty, but use, and it but rarely attempts anything more 
than to fit itself as commodiously as possible into the space 
of ground at its disposal. The exterior seldom has any real 
relation to the interior, and save in one or two instances, no 
one looking at our theatres in London, for instance, could re- 
ceive any notion of their true shape or size from their outward 
appearance. Our most famous buildings of this sort — Covent 
Garden Opera House or Drury Lane Theatre — have no claim 
at all on us as works of art : they are well-arranged barns, 
in which a multitude may be gathered together without 
too much inconvenience or risk. Palladio's intention was 
very different from anything of this sort. Founding himself 
on Vitruvius, whose directions he carried out with the 
utmost loyalty, he was able to build a theatre which I sup- 
pose to be as useless for the modern stage as I suspect it to 
have been for the stage of his day. The Italian theatre, 
j always without a single native tragedy, entirely consisted of 
a school of artificial comedy — very delightful, but without any 
sense of grandeur or nobility. For the inauguration of their 
theatre the Vicenzesi were compelled to fall back on Sophocles 



282 VENICE AND VENETIA 

and to open their new house with a play which still holds the 
Italian boards. Such a play I imagine to have been in place 
here, but that only emphasizes the fact that this building had 
but little, if any, vital relation with the work and life of its own 
time. And here I think we come upon the truth with regard 
to the whole work of Palladio. Essentially a scholar, an artist 
at the mercy of rules long since outmoded, everything he built 
is an imitation or a revival of a style that was obsolete. His 
churches have nothing to do with Christianity, and are merely 
adaptations more or less adequate for its needs. His palaces 
are certainly more in touch with the need of his time, and 
even of ours, but they show no creative power, and what 
nobility they have comes from the fact that mere human 
nature is much the same in all ages. His theatre was aj 
splendid but forlorn hope; small as it rightly was, life could' 
not fill it — it was only a tomb. 

The vast Palazzo Chiericati in the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele 
contains the Vicenza picture gallery. It consists of a small 
but valuable collection of pictures at present half hung and 
in the greatest confusion, but among them even now may be 
distinguished several fine works by Montagna, an early work 
by Cima, a good Tiepolo, a rare Antonello da Messina, and 
pictures by Jacopo da Bassano, Tintoretto, and Paolo Veronese. 

There remain still in Vicenza three churches with impor- 
tant pictures, and these all stand in that part of the town 
which lies to the north of the Corso. The first, S. Corona, 
is close to the Theatre of Palladio. It is a fine Gothic 
building of brick, erected in the thirteenth century. Here 
we find, beside some frescoes by Speranza, a follower and 
imitator of Montagna, a fine altarpiece by Montagna himself 
of five saints in a Renaissance frame over the second altar 
on the left, and over the fifth a magnificent work by Giovanni 
Bellini — the Baptism of Christ. 

Close to S. Corona stands S. Stefano, with its splendid 
altarpiece by Palma Vecchio — the Madonna with S. Lucy 
and S. George. 

Passing some Palladian palaces, we come to another fine 



VICENZA 283 

thirteenth-century church of brick, S. Lorenzo; here is a 
fresco by Montagna in the choir chapel on the left ; and here 
Montagna was buried. To the north-east of S. Lorenzo we 
pass another Palladian palace, Palazzo Valmarana, before we 
come to the Church of S. Rocco, where over the High Altar 
is the masterpiece of Buonconsiglio, the best of Montagna's 
followers. It represents the Madonna enthroned with 
SS. Sebastian, Bernard, Peter, and Paul, and was painted 
in 1502. 

But the best work Vicenza has to offer us, and the most 
characteristic of her greatest painter, is not within the city 
wall, but just without it in the great Temple of the Madonna 
that crowns one of the spurs of the Monti Berici, about a 
mile from the town. The way thither is steep and perhaps 
tiring, but it is full of rewards, for the views we get thence 
over the plain and towards the mountains are finer than 
anything to be seen in Bassano or, I think, at i\.rqua. The 
whole Veneto seems to lie at our feet not divorced from the 
hills, but indeed their own child, created by them and in a 
very real way subject to them. 

A church and convent have stood here since 1428, in 
which year the Blessed Virgin appeared in a vision on this 
mountain to some shepherds. In 1688 the church was 
rebuilt in the latest fashion, that is to say, in the form of a 
Greek Cross under a dome. The church is coldly interesting, 
but what we have come to see is the marvellous picture by 
Montagna — a Pieta, one of the few truly religious pictures 
painted in the sixteenth century. 

Beyond the church there is a magnificent walk along the 
ridge of the hill, where all that is best and most characteristic 
in the Venetian terra finna^ is spread out before you. Vicenza 
is at your feet, and as evening comes over the vast plain you 
begin to understand what primarily a city is, why it was built, 
■ and whence its origin. 



XXI 
VERONA 

I. 

THE road from Vicenza to Verona runs south-west at the 
foot of the great mountains, which here are thrust into the 
plain Hke so many vast bastions, between which deep valleys 
push their way far into the country of the hills. The road is 
perhaps the loveliest in all this country of the Veneto just 
because it is never far from the hills. At first setting out it 
runs between two ranges of them, for to the south of it 
rise the island group of peaks we call Monti Berici. And 
when it leaves them behind and emerges into the plain still 
in the shadow of the great mountains to the north, it is 
guarded all the way on the south by the Adige quite into 
Verona. Following that road afoot, it is a good two days' 
walk into Verona. But what matters? There are many 
pleasant places by the way. Montebello has none so poor 
an inn that it should be despised, and above it rises an old 
castello of the Montecchi, Shakespeare's Montagues, from 
whom was Romeo sprung, so that it might seem a place of 
rest of right for EngHshmen. And after Montebello there 
is Monteforte, there is Soave of the Scaligers, there are the 
hot springs of Caldiero which the Romans knew, there is 
S. Martino, and that was a monastery; indeed, there is all 
the history and the poetry of our Europe if you can but see 
it, and as a background some of the loveliest scenery in the 
world. 

Yet I confess, such is the nature of man, that with so 

284 



'r-- 




^^ 



1 



'^^ 




i 



VERONA 285 

majestical a prize as Verona at the end of the journey, he 

is exceptional who can linger by the wayside and count the 

rivers and sing to the mountains, adore the sun and pluck the 

flowers, and rejoice in the long way and the great road, and 

despise the railway. Verona is too much for most of us, 

and all as nothing that prevents her. 

But what is Verona ? In the memory of the world she is 

the city of Juliet, of the Two Gentlemen, and remotely of that 

poor poet — who was all a Mantuan — that Dante spoke of, 

Sordello ! 

" A single eye 
In all Verona cared for the soft sky." 

We think, and rightly, of Verona as a city of romance, a 
place inviolate in our dreams, consecrated for ever by the 
greatest of poets, the home of two people who possibly never 
existed, but who are much more real to us than most of 
those who cumber the world. Others less wise but more 
instructed remember the old vine dresser of Claudian, 
driven out by the Huns, watching his house burn and his 
vintage spoiled ; they see the wizened, eager face of the 
devilish Ecelino, or the proud and noble Can Grande della 
Scala welcoming the great fugitive Dante Alighieri. Such is 
Verona as she appears to us in our day-dreams ; but what 
is the real Verona? 

The real Verona is now and has always been a fortress; 
for that she was born and for that she lives. Any large map 
of Central Europe will convince us of this. Verona stands 
at the southern entrance of the greatest and the most famous 
of all the gates of the Germanics, the gate of the Brenner, 
which Innspruck holds on the north. Behind Verona the 
great mountains rise, cloven here by the Brenner Pass. Above 
that pass rise two rivers — the Adige, which flows down into 
the Italian plain and the Adriatic, and the Inn, which flows 
down into the Danube and so into the Black Sea. Here is 
the frontier, and here is the iron gate which the Goths at last 
clanged open when they fell upon Italy and the Germanics 
surged into Europe. That is the real Verona — the fortress by 



286 VENICE AND VENETIA 

the gate ; and this she has been for near three thousand years 
without a change ; for as she held that gate in the beginning, 
as she held it, though she failed at last, in the time of the 
Empire, so she held it in the wars of the nineteenth century, 
and, armed to the teeth, so she holds it to-day. Verona has 
always been full of soldiers, and a single walk through her 
streets any Thursday evening will presently convince the 
stranger that she no more thinks of disarmament to-day than 
at any time in her history. Rather is she doubly vigilant. 
For if the barbarism of the Germanics — which we call Central 
Europe not necessarily in terms of culture, but in terms of 
geography — should rise again, it is through this gash in the 
great hills and across this frontier it must flow like Etna's 
infernal avalanche upon what, when all is said, is still the 
fairest country of our world. 

Verona is very old : she has looked into the face of war for 
many thousand years. If those few huts on the Colle di 
S. Pietro represent, as it were, her foundation, to whom do 
we owe it? Her chroniclers claim for her an antiquity as 
fabulous as that of any other Italian city, speaking of her 
as famous before the building of Troy, before the disaster of 
the Flood. These vague dates mean nothing to us ; yet when 
in our turn we begin to make examination and to establish 
her militant here in earth as a fortress of the Etruscans or of 
the Cimbri or of the Gauls, we are equally at a loss. All we 
can say is that she is very old and that it seems possible the 
Etruscans either occupied or founded her some six centuries 
before the birth of Our Lord. Two centuries later she was 
certainly in existence, and it seems probable that in the third 
century B.C. she became part of the Roman world, was 
garrisoned by Roman soldiers, and accepted Roman pro- 
tection. She seems to have fought beside Rome at the battle 
of Cannae, and to have held, or tried to hold, the mountain 
gate against the Germanics in the end of the second century 
B.C. From that date at least she must have continually 
received much Teutonic blood, which may account for much 
in her later history. 



VERONA 287 

When precisely Verona came under the influence of 
Rome it seems impossible to determine; but she became 
a Roman colony in B.C. 89, under the Lex Pompeia^ and after 
the battle of Philippi, with the rest of the cities in Cisalpine 
Gaul, it seems that her people were granted Roman citizen- 
ship. Under the Empire Verona soon became of the greatest 
'importance, for she held the German gate, and most of the 
North Italian roads met in her streets. The Via Gallica 
passed through Verona, as did the Via Postumia and the 

- Bologna road. She took her part in all the wars of the 
Empire : in that which placed Vespasian in the seat of 

\: Augustus, in that which saw Philip the Arab dead at her 
gates, and in that which saw Claudius II victorious over the 
Barbarians. 

Even to-day her Roman remains are of the utmost import- 

! ance, including much beside the vast amphitheatre, which is 

- as tremendous a reHc of Rome as anywhere exists outside the 
Eternal City. We shall consider its date later; it is enough 
here to note that it alone would be a witness of the Roman 

'importance of the city. This importance is also witnessed 
by the sieges she has endured; notably that of the year 312, 
when Constantine came down from the Mont Cenis and found 
her in his path. Of this siege Gibbon gives us a graphic 
account : " From Milan to Rome the ^.milian and Flaminian 
highways offered an easy march of about four hundred miles ; 
but though Constantine was impatient to encounter the tyrant 
[it was Maxentius], he prudently directed his operations 
against another army of Italians, who by their strength and 
position might either oppose his progress, or, in case of a 
misfortune, intercept his retreat. Ruricus Pompeianus, a 
general distinguished by his valour and ability, had under 
his command the city of Verona and all the troops that were 
stationed in the province of Venetia. As soon as he was 
informed that Constantine was advancing towards him, he 
detached a large body of cavalry, which was defeated in an 
engagement near Brescia, and pursued by the Gallic legions 
as far as the gates of Verona. The necessity, the importance, 



288 VENICE AND VENETIA 

and the difficulties of the siege of Verona immediately pre- 
sented themselves to the sagacious mind of Constantine. 
The city was accessible only by a narrow peninsula towards 
the west, as the other three sides were surrounded by the 
Adige, a rapid river, which covered the province of Venetia, 
from whence the besieged derived an inexhaustible supply of 
men and provisions. It was not without great difficulty, and 
after several fruitless attempts, that Constantine found means 
to pass the river at some, distance above the city, and in a 
place where the torrent was less violent. He then encom- 
passed Verona with strong lines, pushed his attacks with 
prudent vigour, and repelled a desperate sally of Pompeianus. 
That intrepid general, when he had used every means of 
defence that the strength of the place or that of the garrison 
could afford, secretly escaped from Verona, anxious not for 
his own but the public safety." He returned with a new 
army, but Constantine was ready for him, and after a very 
bloody battle remained the victor and received the submission 
of Verona. Thereafter Verona became a part of the Western 
Empire, and was often the home of the Emperors in the 
restless years that followed, for it held the key not only to 
Germany but to all Upper Italy. 

With the dawn of the fifth century the city was to under- 
stand what that position entailed upon her. In 402 she saw 
Alaric cross the Alps, and may well have divined that he was 
but a herald. Met and defeated by Stilicho at Pollentia, 
Alaric, with a great unbroken part of his army, crossed the 
Apennines to conquer Rome, but Stilicho was at his heels, 
and arranged terms which sent the Barbarian back across the 
Po, Stilicho still following him. " The King of the Goths," 
says Gibbon, " ambitious to signalize his retreat by some 
splendid achievement, had resolved to occupy the important 
city of Verona, which commands the principal passage of the 
Rhaetian Alps. ... In the bloody action at a small distance 
from the walls of Verona the loss of the Goths was not less 
heavy than that which they had sustained in the defeat of 
Pollentia; and their valiant king, who escaped by the swift- 



VERONA 289 

ness of his horse, must either have been slain or made 
prisoner, if the hasty rashness of Alaric had not disappointed 
the measures of the Roman general. Alaric secured the 
remains of his army on the adjacent rocks, and prepared 
himself with undaunted resolution to maintain a siege against 
the superior numbers of the enemy who invested him on all 
sides. But he could not oppose the destructive progress of 
hunger and disease . . . and the retreat of the Gothic king 
was considered as the deliverance of Italy." 

That was in 403. Verona had then long been a Catholic 
city, Christianity having been introduced, according to the 
legend, in the first age, and had gloried in a bishop appointed 
by S. Peter himself. Her first eight bishops, in fact, were all 
canonized, S. Zeno being the last of them, who was bishop in 
390. At this time Verona was subject to the Metropolitan 
See of Milan, which embraced practically all Northern Italy. 

As we have seen, though Verona was not able to keep 
Alaric out of Italy, she was not herself at his mercy. It was 
different with the next and heathen invasion. In 452 Attila 
with his Huns invaded Venetia by way of Aquileia, and having 
razed that city to the ground, he flung down also Vicenza, 
Verona, and Bergamo. We do not know what they suffered, 
all we can see is the figure of that old husbandman which 
Claudian shows us watching his trees, his old contemporary 
trees, "burning in his orchard, his vines trampled underfoot, 
his family, his happiness swept away before his eyes." 

But life had not done with Verona, as she had with 
Aquileia. In 476 Odoacer crossed the pass she kept, pro- 
claimed himself King of Italy, and with his Barbarians made 
Verona his fortress. Theodoric swept him out and adopted 
Verona as his own, loving it well and building greatly there, as 
on the Colle di S. Pietro, where he had his palace. With the 
decline of the Gothic power Verona once more saw anarchy. 
Not till the Longobards under Alboin came over the hills did 
she know anything that could pass for settled rule. Alboin 
established himself in Verona, and there gave that famous 
banquet when he bade his wife Rosamund drinki from her 



290 VENICE AND YENETIA — 

father's skull, and so compassed his own end, for the queen 
had him slain in 574 and fled to Ravenna. 

It was the Longobards who established dukes in Verona, 
and their rule endured for more than two centuries, till, in 
fact, Charlemagne came to find his kingdom and to restore 
the Empire from which Europe was made. 

Under Carlovingian rule counts took the place of the 
Longobard dukes, and Charlemagne's son, Pepin, was said 
to have been buried outside the Church of S. Zeno, where 
Roland and Oliver still stand on guard. There followed here, 
as elsewhere in Italy, an appalling darkness, the darkness of 
the ninth century. Figures pass to and fro in that night, but 
not one of them stands out till the Empire was re-established 
out of the confusion, and we suddenly find in the year 1076 j 
Henry IV and Gregory VII face to face. 

Verona sided with the Emperor, and was faithful to him, 
hoping to gain the freedom of what had come to be her 
Commune. But she could not love Frederic Barbarossa, 
whose cruel work in Milan she witnessed. An attempt to j 
destroy him as he crossed the Adige above the city by the 1 
bridge of boats failed, and Verona, fearing his vengeance, ! 
joined the Lombard League on its formation in 11 64 against 
him, and took part in the victory of Vigasio in her own terri- 
tory, which forced Frederic to the Peace of Venice in 11 78. 

Verona had won her freedom from exterior interference, 
but she was now, and for many years, to be at the mercy 
of her own factions. By joining the Lombard League she 
had ceased to be Ghibelline, but in thus forsaking the 
Imperial cause she was by no means unanimous. Too much 
was to be gained by division. The most famous factions that 
now began to prey upon her were those of the Ghibelline 
Montecchi and the Guelf Cappelletti, Shakespeare's Mon- 
tagues and Capulets. Every sort of anarchy and private war 
obtained, and the confusion was only not too great to prevent 
the renewal of the Lombard League against Frederic II in 
1226. Peace was preached not only by the Pope but by the 
newly-born Orders of S. Francis and S. Dominic, and espe- 



VEKONA 291 

daily in Verona by a Dominican, Fra Giovanni da Vicenza, 
who held a vast assembly in this cause a few miles outside 
the city of Verona, on 28 August, 1233, when not less 
than 400,000 persons are said to have been present to hear 
him ; the whole population of many cities, according to 
Sismondi, having gathered there. Fra Giovanni was success- 
ful in so far that for the moment the factions were afraid, 
for in his enthusiasm he had sixty members of the principal 
families, both men and women, burnt alive for heresy. So 
much for S. Dominic. 

But there was one about to present himself in Verona before 
whom Fra Giovanni was as a torchlight to the sun. The 
Montecchi faction had lately found support in one Ecelino da 
Romano, whose name is like a red sign in all the history of 
this country. I have spoken of him elsewhere.^ If he mur- 
dered 11,000 persons in Padua be sure Verona did not go 
free. His name became more terrible than Satan's, more 
murderous than Attila's. Men said he was the child of the 
devil, and Dante placed him in his Hell. He became Ghibel- 
line captain in Verona, Vicenza, Padua, and many another 
city, till the Pope sent a crusade against him, and he died 
" like a boar at bay, rending from his wounds the dressings 
his enemies had placed to keep him alive." In Verona he 
had married at S. Zeno Selvaggia, the natural daughter of 
Frederic II, and it was he who hurled down the castello in 
1243, so that we now see his ruin. 

In Venetia, and indeed in Northern Italy generally, Ecelino 
serves as a bloody signature to the end of an appalling chapter. 
He had proved the futility of the Commune, its weakness 
before the force of a single individuality; what the factions 
had foretold he fulfilled, and with him end Commune, 
factions — all. There remained the Signori. 

These lords came in the old form of Podesta, and the first, 
Mastino della Scala, was never more, either in name or power. 
Nevertheless he founded a line of masters and lords that lasted 
for more than a hundred years, and under whom Verona 

* See supra, p. 237. 



292 VENICE AND YENETIA 

attained her greatest strength and consequent happiness, her 
greatest fertility, too, in learning and the arts. 

And first as to the work of Mastino. He curbed the fac- 
tions and restored a sort of confidence. With a firm hand he 
crushed rebellion wherever it appeared, and in 1262 he was 
elected Captain of the People. Nor was he less successful in 
what we may call his foreign policy. He brought Piacenza 
under his rule, and persuaded Cremona to join the Ghibelline 
party; and when in 1267 Conradin, the last of the Hohen- 
staufen, entered Verona on his way south, he received him 
nobly, and saw him on his way so far as Pavia, of which 
Conradin made him Rector. He returned to Verona to 
subdue the Guelf city of Mantua, where he established his 
brother Alberto as Podesta. Thus he had founded his 
dominion when in 1277 he was suddenly murdered. 

Alberto della Scala of Mantua presently avenged him, and 
in doing it made himself actual lord of Verona, and before long 
of Reggio and Parma also, of Vicenza and Feltre and Belluno. 
This man was a great builder. He built new walls and 
bridges, and in 1301 began the Casa dei Mercanti. He was 
a good and strong ruler, and ambitious for his family. The 
times were on his side. He was able to ally himself through 
his children with the d' Este and the Visconti, and when he 
died in September, 1301, he was greeted as the saviour of his 
people. 

He was succeeded by his son Bartolommeo, a man of 
culture and of peace, who had the honour, shared later with 
his brother, Can Grande, of welcoming Dante to his city, and 
Dante repaid them in the seventeenth Canto of the " Paradiso." 
Bartolommeo was not a great ruler, but he seems to have 
been beloved. He was succeeded by his brother Alboino, 
whom Dante contemned ; he was a sort of Guelf and a weak 
ruler. He soon associated his great brother, Can Grande, 
with him in his lordship, a man who was to be among the 
most splendid princes of his time. The chronicles are full of 
him from his birth to his death, endless legends grew up about 
him, and we learn that he was the bravest, the most eager, 



YEKONA 293 

and the wisest captain in all Venetia, which to so large an 
extent he brought under his sway. That he was religious we 
cannot doubt ; he founded S. Maria della Scala and endowed 
the Church of S. Fermo. Dante fixed his hopes in him after 
the death of Henry VII at Bonconvento, praised him in glow- 
ing verses, quarrelled with him and left him, but dedicated the 
" Paradiso " to him at last in that Tenth Epistle in which he 
expresses the meaning of his great poem. Giovanni Villani, 
the Florentine chronicler, calls him " the greatest lord and the 
richest and most powerful prince that has been in Lombardy 
since Ecelino da Romano," while Boccaccio in almost iden- 
tical terms praises him in the seventh story of the First Day of 
the " Decameron." 

A great captain, a great builder, a great sportsman — he kept 
three hundred hawks — the host of the greatest poet of his age, 
Can Grande was also a great patron of artists and of scholars. 
We hear of Doctors of Theology, of Astrologers, of Philoso- 
phers, and Musicians at his court, and we know that it was at 
his invitation Giotto came to Verona, though, alas ! there is 
nothing now left there to remind us of it. 

This great man died at Treviso in July, 1329, when about 
thirty-eight years of age. His successors were still very young 
and were not his sons, for he had no legitimate issue, but his 
nephews, Mastino and Alberto. Mastino was merely ambi- 
tious, without wisdom or nobility. Alberto was merely 
vicious, and cared only for a life of pleasure. They enjoyed 
a vast income, more than 700,000 florins of gold according to 
Villani, from the ten towns, including Lucca, which Can 
Grande had conquered or had ruled, but, not content, they 
foolishly offended Venice by building a salt factory near 
Chioggia, and taxed Venetian merchandize as it entered the 
Brenta. In less than ten years after Can Grande's death 
Venice with her allies attacked them, and, as we know, 
through trusting their prisoner, Marsilio da Carrara, lately lord 
of Padua, with an embassy to the Doge, they lost Padua, 
Alberto was taken prisoner, and Mastino was forced to break 
up his dominion, ceding towns to the King of Hungary and 



294 VENICE AND YENETIA 

to the Visconti. Mastino seems to have been driven mad by 
misfortmie. In the August of 1338, in a fit of fury, he mur- 
dered with his own hand Bishop Bartolommeo della Scala, 
and brought down upon his head the anger of the Church. 
The Pope excommunicated him, and for long all seemed lost. 
He managed, however, to marry his daughter to Bernabb 
Visconti, heir of Milan, and his eldest son, Can Grande II, to 
the daughter of the King of Bavaria. Then he died, in 135 1, 
and in September of the same year was followed by his brother 
Alberto. 

Can Grande II was called the Mad Dog, Canis Rabidus. 
He was a hopeless and rapacious ruler, whom Milan and 
Mantua continually plotted to murder. He it was who built 
the Castel Vecchio in Verona to ensure his safety. There he 
spent his life. Yet when he died at last it was by the hand of 
his own brother. This brother, Can Signorio, got himself 
proclaimed Lord of Verona. He seems to have been a better 
ruler than his predecessors since Can Grande. At any rate, 
he was a great builder. He rebuilt the Ponte delle Navi, and 
built the fountain of the Piazza delle Erbe, thus bringing 
drinking-water into the city. But having murdered one 
brother to secure his own succession, he murdered another to 
secure the succession of his illegitimate sons. When he died 
in 1375 they reigned for a few years, but the elder was . 
assassinated by the younger in 1381, and the younger was 
himself compelled to flee the city in 1387, when he gave his 
town to the King of the Romans, who handed it over to 
Visconti. He died in 1388. For some years the town 
remained in the hands of Visconti, and then came into the 
power of the Carraresi, but in 1404 Venice, having disposed 
of these, claimed dominion, which she obtained by the Act of 
Surrender, dated 22 June, 1405. 

II 

Such in the merest outline is the story of Verona up to the 
time she came into the power of Venice. Let us now examine 
the city herself. j 



VERONA 295 

The city of Verona is in form exceedingly like to the city of 
Venice. That is to say, it is roughly divided into two parts 
by the river Adige, as Venice is by the Grand Canal, and the 
course that river takes through the city is very similar indeed 
to that of the canal. Roughly it may be said to form the 
sign ^ . And just as the busiest parts of Venice are those on 
the great peninsula whose beak is the Rialto, so the chief 
part of Verona is that on the very similar peninsula whose 
beak is the Duomo. Yet in Verona as in Venice both sides 
of the water have been continuously occupied. 

If we were to begin an examination with the oldest ruins 
that remain to Verona, we should probably find ourselves on 
the Castel S. Pietro or in the ravine that separates it from the 
river, where so much has been disinterred ; but we shall find 
all the antiquity we can desire in the very centre of the 
modern city, where one of the most remarkable of Roman 
monuments to be found in Italy is still standing, substantially 
as it was two thousand years ago. 

It seems impossible to decide when the Arena was built, 
but it probably dates from the first years of our era. The 
Arena was built for the spectacle so dear to all the Latin 
peoples of the fight of beasts, of one beast with another, of the 
lion with the bear, of the tiger with the elephant, of panthers 
and crocodiles. It was built of vast blocks of stone, quarried 
hard by in the mountains, of a slightly oblong shape, and 
capable of accommodating some 20,000 persons.^ The outer 
wall here consisted of four stories, but of these but three 
remain, save in one fragment, the rest of the building is in 
really an excellent state. We know very little of the shows 
that were given here. We hear of gladiatorial contests cele- 
brated here in the time of Trajan, and of rumours of fights 
between men and beasts. We may believe that S. Fermo and 
S. Rustico were here martyred in the time of Diocletian in 
303 A.D., when they were burned alive, and, when the fires 

^ The Colosseum, the Flavian amphitheatre, is said to have been 
capable of seating 87,000 persons ; the Valencia Bull Rin will seat 
70,000, 



296 VENICE AND YENETIA 

failed, beheaded. But soon afterwards, with the growth of 
Christianity, the spectacle of the amphitheatre was abolished. 
There remained, however, this vast building, which only time 
could really destroy. We hear that not only the Goths and 
the Huns spoiled it, but that Theodoric encouraged its 
destruction ; yet without avail. There it stood, to be used 
later for the trial by fire and for tournaments, and again for 
public executions. Many of the Paterani, those unfortunate 
heretics of one of whom Villani tells so pitiful a tale, suffered 
death by burning in the Arena of Verona. 

"In the said year 1305," says Villani, "in the territory of 
Novara in Lombardy, there was one Frate Dolcino which was 
not a brother of any regular Order, but as it were a monk 
outside the Orders, and he rose up and led astray a great 
company of heretics, men and women of the country and of 
the mountains of small account ; and the said Frate Dolcino 
taught and preached that he was a true apostle of Christ, and 
that everything ought to be held lovingly in common, and 
women also were to be held in common, and there was no sin 
in so using them. And many other foul articles of heresy he 
preached, and maintained that the Pope and Cardinals and 
the other rulers of Holy Church did not observe their duty 
nor the evangelic life ; and that he ought to be made Pope. 
And he, with a following of more than 3,000 men and 
women, abode in the mountains, living in common after 
the manner of beasts ; and when they wanted victuals they 
took and robbed wherever they could find any ; and thus he 
reigned for two years. At last those which followed the said 
dissolute life, becoming weary of it, his sect diminished much, 
and through want of victuals and by reason of the snow he 
was taken by the Navarese and burnt, with Margaret his 
companion, and with many other men and women which with 
him had been led astray." 

That is one picture. A far other is presented nearly eighty 
years later by the gresit/esfa given here by the fratricide, Antonio 
della Scala, when a vast joust was arranged in honour of the 
beautiful Samaritanada Polenta, his betrothed. For centuries 



YERONA 297 

the Arena was used for this sort of pageant, and we hear 
of one even in the eighteenth century. Towards the end of 
that century, in 1789, the first bull-fight was held here in the 
same Arena to which seven years before thousands had flocked 
to receive the blessing of Pius VI. In the beginning of the 
nineteenth century the great Napoleon gave a bull-fight here and 
was present at it himself, on 16 July, 1805, feeling like Csesar. 
The last bull-fight was given in 18 15. But with all its history 
upon it, what I like to remember best about the Arena is 
that Eleanora Duse on her fourteenth birthday played Juliet 
here in the city of Juliet in the light of a few lanterns, and so 
began her great career. 

The Arena, now surrounded by the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, 
formerly the Piazza Bra, the Prato, or meadow, is perhaps 
the best point in Verona from which to set out on any explora- 
tion of the city. To the east of the Arena is a fragment — all 
that is left — of the Roman wall, and the Caserma in the 
Via Pallone behind the modern Municipio is a part of the 
medieval wall of the Visconti. Just without this wall, in a 
chapel of the suppressed Cappuccini convent, is a medieval 
sarcophagus known as the Tomb of Juliet. It has no interest 
at all, being very obviously a mere traveller's relic. The 
supposed house of the Capulets in the Via Cappello, a far 
more interesting affair, may be reached from the Arena by 
following the busy Via Nuova, which is closed to wheeled 
traffic and where the best shops in the city are situated. This 
street may be compared with the Calle de las Sierpes of 
Seville, which it very much resembles. The Via Nuova ends 
at the Church of S. Toma, and, just beyond, the Via Cappello 
crosses it north and south. Just here on the left is the so- 
called house of the Capulets, and whether or no it be the 
home of Juliet, it is an interesting specimen of a medieval 
mansion, now fallen to very humble use. 

If we turn back from Juliet's house and follow the Via 
Cappello northward, in a few steps we shall come into the 
Piazza of Verona, the Piazza delle Erbe, the Roman Forum, 
the Medieval Piazza, and the modern fruit and vegetable 



298 VENICE AND VENETIA 

market. Venice has here left her mark and signature in the 
marble column at the north end of the Piazza, which bears 
the Lion of S. Mark, a modern copy of an older work. Here 
the Piazza is closed by the Palazzo Maffei, a building of the 
seventeenth century. The corner palace to the right, the Casa 
Mazzanti, was the home of Alberto della Scala. In the six- 
teenth century it was adorned with frescoes by Cavalli, a 
disciple of Giulio Romano. The fountain in the midst of 
the Piazza was rebuilt there by Cansignorio in 1370, but it 
originally dates from the time of Berengarius I at any rate. 
Close by, in the midst of the Piazza, is the Tribune, set 
there in 1307, from which decrees were promulgated and 
where each of the Scaligers took an oath on his succession. 
Opposite are two palaces with faded frescoes by Liberale and 
Girolamo dai Libri. At the corner of the Via PelUciai is the 
Casa dei Mercanti, begun by Alberto della Scala in 1301, 
the year of his death. Opposite stands the fine tower of the ; 
Lamberti, but who the Lamberti were or who built this tower 
is a mystery. The other tower in the Piazza is the Torre del 
Gardello, built in 1370 by Cansignorio, who fixed therein the 
first clock in Verona to strike the hours. 

From the picturesque and busy Piazza delle Erbe we pass 
into the deserted Piazza dei Signori under the archway called 
La Costa. Deserted as it seems, it is crowded with the ghosts ; 
of the Scaligers, whose centre of life and government it was. I 
Their palaces, both public and private, surround it, and it is 
closed by their Church of S. Maria Antica, where they heard 
Mass and about which they lie in their splendid tombs. 

In the centre of the Piazza is a modern statue of Dante, 
wholly without interest. But the first palace on the right as 
we come from the Piazza delle Erbe is the Palazzo delle 
Ragione, built in 1183 for the office it still fulfils. The court- 
yard is beautiful, and contains a magnificent flight of steps of 
the fourteenth century. This end of the Piazza is closed by 
the Palazzo de' Giurisconsulti, founded in 1263, but rebuilt 
in the sixteenth century. 

On the further side of the Via Dante rises the great tower 



YEEONA 299 

of the Scaligers beside the Palazzo Tribunalizio, which, as an 
inscription tells us, " Cansignorio della Scala, Podesta and 
Captain of the People from Dec. 14, 1359, to Oct. 10, 1375, 
built and inhabited, and which was rebuilt in the sixteenth 
century by the Venetians." The courts of this building should 
all be examined with care, as they are by far the most ancient 
and beautiful parts of the building remaining. 

Opposite stands La Loggia, the Palazzo del Consiglio, pos- 
sibly built by Fra Giocondo, one of the loveliest Renaissance 
buildings in all Italy. It was built by the Venetian Govern- 
ment in 1497, but was restored in 1873. Once statues 
surmounted the fagade, and busts now are set in the wall in 
honour of distinguished Veronesi. Originally this palace was 
intended to fill the whole side of the Piazza, but no more than 
we see was ever finished. Under the archway in the Via 
Mazzanti is a fine old fountain of about the same date as the 
palace, built of the fine red local marble. 

Turning now back to the Tribunale, we pass down the way 
beside it to the Church of S. Maria Antica. This very ancient 
church, the private chapel of the Scaligers, dates from the year 
1000 ; but it has been recently though reverently restored. 
Without are the monuments of the famous House which for 
so long ruled in Verona. The first over the entrance to the 
church is that of Can Grande, who ruled in Verona from 
131 1 to 1329. It is surmounted by an equestrian statue of 
him who lies in the sarcophagus, the greatest of his race ; and 
the sarcophagus itself bears his recumbent effigy " with hands 
clasped fast as if still in prayer." No description can do 
justice to the simplicity and beauty of the tomb or to that 
splendid figure in armour and a-horseback which surmounts 
it : his horse, too, clad for battle ; his great sword in his 
hand, and his helm flung back upon his shoulders. His face 
is seen as he turns, smiling, as toward some comrade who had 
gone up with him against Vicenza, which he suddenly sees 
taken by his cunning. 

The other tombs, four in all, surround the little churchyard, 
which, with them, is all fenced in with a marvellous grille of 



300 VENICE AND VENETIA 

wrought iron, as fine as anything of the kind in Europe. 
There we see Mastino I, the founder of the family ; Alberto, 
who built so much, and died in 1301 ; Mastino II, and last 
of all, his son Cansignorio, who built his own tomb and set 
about it that crowd of heroes and virtues. Nor must we 
forget to note the magnificent wall tomb of Giovanni della 
Scala, who died in 1350, close to Can Grande's monument.^ 

We follow the street that leads straight out of the Piazza dei 
Signori, past S. Maria Antica, to the Church of S. Anastasia. 
This church, whose apse is almost a bastion thrust into the 
rapid Adige, was built with the assistance of Alberto della 
Scala by the Dominicans in 126 1. It is a fine and even an 
unforgettable example of those Gothic churches in brick 
which are so noble in these North Italian cities, and not least 
in Verona. Its fine portal is of marble, and is decorated with 
reliefs of scenes in the life of S. Peter Martyr and with a fresco 
in the lunette over the door, of the fourteenth century. Within, 
the church is spacious and noble, borne by twelve columns. At 
the foot of the first column on the left is an antique capital, used 
as a holy-water basin, borne by a gobbo, or dwarf, remarkably 
grotesque, and attributed to the father of Paolo Veronese. On 
the right by the first altar is the sixteenth-century monument 
to the Venetian General Fregoso. Over the third altar are 
some frescoes by Caroto and an Entombment attributed to 
Liberale. Over the fourth altar is a picture of S. Martin by 
Caroto — one of his latest works. In the adjoining early 
Renaissance Chapel of the Crucifix is a fourteenth-century 
group of the Entombment in painted terra-cotta and a fine 
wooden Crucifix of the fifteenth century. 

Close to this chapel, over the next altar, is a fine picture of 
the Madonna and Child with SS. Augustine and Thomas 
Aquinas by Francesco Morone, and near by a fine Gothic 
tomb. 

We now come to the chapels about the choir. The second, 

^ Ruskin, " Stones of Venice," vol. iii, cap. ii, § 53-56, has described 
these tombs in his own inimitable way, once and for all. The reader is 
referred to his splendid prose. 



VEKONA 301 

the Cavalli Chapel on the right, contains some interesting 
frescoes, possibly by Altichieri, of Knights of the Cavalli family 
kneeling before the Virgin and Child, and other subjects. The 
Pellegrini Chapel hard by has some remarkable terra-cotta 
reliefs by some Florentine of the fifteenth century. Here of 
old was to be seen the beautiful fresco of S. George by 
Vittore Pisano. It was, in 1901, I think, removed to the 
sacristy, and then in 1902 replaced. Thus are priceless 
things fooled with even to-day in Verona. But worse is this : 
that now it is to be found neither in the sacristy nor in the 
chapel. Of course, it may have been taken to the Pinacoteca, 
which is at present in very great confusion. But the priest in 
charge at S. Anastasia swore he knew nothing of any such 
work, and was profuse in shruggings and extended hands. 
This, of old, I have learnt to be a sign that knowledge is not 
to be imparted, rather than that your shrugger is himself 
ignorant. I shall be exceedingly glad to hear that Pisanello's 
fresco is still in Verona ; but I confess I have not much hope 
of it. It was incomparably the most beautiful and the most 
interesting work of art in S. Anastasia, and the church does 
not seem itself without it. 

The choir, with its fine intarsia stalls, has nothing to show 
us but a painted monument of General Sarego, said to be the 
work of a pupil of Donatello. Close by in the Lavagnoli 
Chapel are some frescoes of the life of Christ by Benaglio, 
a Veronese painter of the fifteenth century. 

In the left transept is a fine picture by Liberale of S. Mary 
Magdalen with the two SS. Catherine, and some early frescoes. 
Nothing else of interest remains in the church. 

Without, beside the church over a gateway, is the marble 
canopied tomb of Guglielmo da Castelbarco, who, friend as he 
was of the Scaligers, helped to build S. Anastasia. 

From the Piazza di S. Anastasia we proceed up the Via 
del Duomo to the Cathedral, past the little oratory of S. Peter 
Martyr, now part of the Convent of S. Anastasia, and built by 
the Knights of Brandenburg, whom Can Grande II called into 
Verona in 1353. 



302 VENICE AND VENETIA 

The cathedral church of Verona, according to tradition, 
dates from the eighth century, but there is Httle or nothing 
there now that can be earUer than the twelfth century. The 
choir, apse, side door, and fagade are of that date, the latter 
having pointed windows of a later time, but the nave, and 
indeed the church as a whole, is a Gothic building of the 
fourteenth century. The apse, interesting and beautiful both 
within and without, the side door, and the main fagade, with 
its fine portal resting on gryphons, and its curious statues, two of 
which on either side the door are thought to represent Roland 
and Oliver, are by far the more splendid parts of the building. 

Within the church is spacious, and is borne by eight red 
marble pillars. Here perhaps the most charming detail is the 
marble rood-loft designed by Sanmicheli, with its fine Crucifix 
of bronze by Giambattista of Verona. The church contains 
but two pictures of any merit : an Adoration of the Magi by 
Liberale da Verona over the second altar on the right, with 
wings by Giolfino, and an Assumption by Titian over the first 
altar on the left. We are largely ignorant of the history of 
this picture. According to Crowe and Cavalcaselle it belongs 
to the same period as the Ecce Homo in Verona, that is to 
say, 1543, but Dr. Gronau would place it, and I agree with 
him, some twenty years earlier, and compare it with the 
Vatican picture. 

At the end of the right aisle is a lovely Gothic tomb, 
known as the tomb of S. Agata. S. Agata is, however, 
buried at Catania, and only a few relics lie here. 

The ancient Baptistery of Verona, S. Giovanni in Fonte, 
is reached from the choir by a passage on the left. It is 
a fine and interesting building of the twelfth century, to 
which date the beautiful sculptured font also belongs. The 
Romanesque cloisters to the north of the main church should 
by no means be missed. Beyond them, to the east, stands 
the Vescovado with its chapel, where are three works by 
Liberale. To the west stands the Palazzo dei Canonici 
with a fine library of manuscripts. 

The Vescovado abuts on the river, just hiding the Duomo 



I 



m 



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m 




k^ 



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m 




•*A'ii&«. .r, 



VERONA 303 

from it, but if we proceed round the Palazzo dei Canonici we 
shall find ourselves on the Lung' Adige, and turning left along 
it come in a quarter of a mile to the Palazzo Ottolini, behind 
which stands the Church of S. Eufemia. This church is a 
Gothic work of the thirteenth century, and contains a rather 
fine Madonna and Child by Moretto. The cloisters were 
designed by Sanmicheli and are worth seeing, while the tomb 
on the left of the main door is by the same master. 

From S. Eufemia we make our way past the Palazzo Piatti 
and the Palazzo Guerrieri to the Porta Borsari, a late Roman 
gate of Verona, built in 265. Beyond opens the Corso Cavour, 
by which we come first, on the right, to the Church of S. 
Lorenzof a small but splendid Romanesque building of per- 
haps the eleventh century, with round towers at either flank 
of the fagade and an interesting but restored interior, then 
on the same side to two Sanmicheli palaces — Palazzo Porta- 
lupi and Palazzo Canossa — and at last to the great fortress of 
Can Grande II, the Castel Vecchio with its fine bridge across 
the Adige. Here Can Grande II shut himself up and spent 
his last years in its safety. 

Passing the Castel we come into the Rigaste S. Zeno by 
the river, and presently turning to the left just before we come 
to a barracks we find ourselves in the Piazza di S. Zeno before 
S. Zeno's Church. 

S. Zeno Maggiore is by far the most interesting church 
in Verona, and is one of the finest Romanesque buildings 
in Italy. It is said to have been founded by Pepin, son of 
Charlemagne, and though this might seem far-fetched, much 
leads us to think that it was begun about the year 900. The 
whole church in its quietness, simplicity, and isolation is full 
of charm, and above anything else in Verona might seem 
to figure the place for us, 

One of the loveliest features in this altogether lovely church 
is the main portal borne by columns resting on the backs 
of lions carved from the local red marble of Verona. It is 
adorned, too, with a splendid series of reliefs that seem to 
be twelfth-century work. Here Theodoric, the magician of 



304 VENICE AND YENETIA 

Verona, is riding "headlong to the devil," and over the doors 
we see the twelve months figured. The doors themselves are 
covered with reliefs in bronze from the life of S. Zeno. 

Within we find ourselves in a flat-roofed basilica of various 
dates, the nave as we see it being of the twelfth, the uplifted 
choir of the thirteenth century. 

The nave contains little of interest : an octagonal font, a 
fourteenth-century fresco of S. Zeno, a holy- water stoup con- 
trived out of an antique capital, an old vase of porphyry 
near 30 feet in circumference, and a fine Giottesque Crucifix, 
while everywhere are remains of frescoes that have now 
vanished. 

On the beautiful lofty choir screen are thirteenth-century 
figures in marble of Our Lord and the Apostles, and below 
ornaments in a low relief. To the right, high up at the foot 
of the steps to the choir, is a marble figure of S. Zeno painted. 

Behind the High Altar we come to the great treasure of the 
church, though splendid as it is it is not so precious as the 
church itself — a splendid altarpiece by Mantegna of Madonna 
enthroned with her Divine Son among many angels and 
S. Peter, S. Paul, S. John, S. Zeno, S. John Baptist, S. 
Gregory, S. Lawrence, and S. Benedict. There is nothing 
finer in Verona. 

In the great crypt S. Zeno lies, in a humble modern tomb. 

S. Zeno was a monastic church of the Order of S. Benedict, 
very famous through all Northern Italy. All that remains of 
the monastery, however, is the great tower and the cloisters, 
which are worth seeing. 

On our way back into Verona, for here at S. Zeno we are 
on the verge of the city, we turn out of the Via Giuseppe into 
the Vicolo Lungo S. Bernardino and so come to the church 
of that name. We enter the church through a cloister, for 
the place is no longer a Franciscan convent but a boys' 
school. S. Bernardino is, as we might suppose, a building 
of the fifteenth century, and for the most part it contains little 
of interest. It is worth a visit, however, if only to see the 
Cappella Pellegrini, built in 1557 by Sanmicheli. Another 



VERONA 305 

and a greater monument by the same master stands not far 
away — I mean the tremendous Porta Palio at the end of the 
Stradale di Porta Palio. 

We now return to the Arena, and set out to explore that 
part of the city on the left bank of the Adige which is known 
as Veronetta. On our way, however, before crossing the Ponte 
delle Navi, we shall visit the Church of S. Fermo Maggiore. 

S. Fermo, which was built early in the fourteenth century 
for the Benedictines, was later given to the Franciscans. 
To-day it is served by seculars. The fagade is beautiful, and 
there we see the tomb of Can Grande's physician, Fra Castoro, 
with its old frescoes. 

Within the church has been much modernized, but it still 
preserves a few old frescoes of the Veronese school and even 
remnants of the fine work of Pisanello. Nothing within the 
church, however, is so fine as the church itself, which can best 
be seen from the Ponte delle Navi. 

We cross the bridge and turning to the right come to the 
Palazzo Pompei, which contains the Picture Gallery. No 
detailed account can be given of the precious works here, for 
the whole Gallery is at present in confusion and without a 
catalogue. The custode, however, is very intelligent and help- 
ful in every way, and will do his best for the visitor, who 
should insist on seeing the fine Madonna and Child with 
saints by Mantegna here, the works of the early Veronese 
masters, which are very charming, and the fine Paolo Veronese 
Portrait of Guarienti. 

From the Pinacoteca you turn back up-stream and follow 
the Via Scrimiari as far as the second cross-road, there turn 
left and you are before the Church of S. Tommaso, where is a 
fine picture of S. Sebastian, S. Roch, and Job by Girolamo 
dai Libri.^ 

Turning back from S. Tommaso, which of old stood on an 
island in the river, along the way we have come, but keeping 

' Another work by the same master, as well as one by Veronese and 
another by Bonsignori, is to be seen in S. Paolo di Campo Marzo close to 
the Gallery. 
X 



3o6 VENICE AND YENETIA 

straight on down the Via Disciplina, instead of turning into 
Via Scrimiari, we come presently, a Httle way to the left, to the 
Church of SS. Nazaro and Celso. This is a Gothic church, 
rebuilt in the latter part of the fifteenth century. Its chief 
interest for us is two works by Montagna — a Pieta and Four 
Saints. Here, too, is an altarpiece by Bonsignori and some 
injured frescoes by his master. 

We now return along the Via Muro Padri past the mys- 
teriously lovely gardens of the Giusti Palace, which one is 
always foolish to pass by without a visit, and so at last come 
to S. Maria in Organo, a very old church, rebuilt by San- 
micheli. Here are frescoes by Francesco Morone, an altar- 
piece and some portraits by the same master, and a Madonna 
and Child by Girolamo dai Libri. 

S. Maria in Organo used to stand on the brink of the 
Adige. In those days, not so long ago, for it was only in 
1895 ^h^^ ^h^ canal was filled up, S. Tommaso with all its 
quarter was an island. 

It is useless to climb up to Castel S. Pietro, for the view 
is not notably finer than that to be had from the Giusti ter- 
races under the mysterious cypresses, and there is nothing 
else to see there. It is better and very pleasant to follow the 
low road by the river past the old Roman theatre, past the 
Ponte Pietra, the oldest bridge in Verona, and taking the Via 
Alessio at last to come to S. Giorgio in Braida. This is another 
old church rebuilt by Sanmicheli, and it is now as quiet and 
delicious a little picture gallery as is to be found in all the 
Veneto. 

Here is a fine picture by Girolamo dai Libri of the 
Madonna enthroned between SS. Zeno and Lorenzo Gius- 
tincani with three angels at Her feet playing music for Her 
delight. Close by is a fine Moretto, the Madonna with the 
two Maries, a cool and lovely piece of painting, and best of 
all, perhaps, is the Paolo Veronese, the martyrdom of S. 
George which stands over the High Altar. 

And it is not any picture or church, nor the great palaces 
about the old Piazza, nor even the Arena itself that come 



VERONA 307 

back into my mind when I hear the name of Verona, but 
those gardens of the Conti Giusti, where I have spent so 
many evenings under the cypresses that are as beautiful 
there as those in Hadrian's garden at Tivoli. Here best 
of all I have found my desire, and recalled in my heart 
the Italy that is my fatherland. For the majestic and 
melancholy cypresses of those gardens have seen all the 
glory and tears, the victories, the defeats, the captivities of 
Verona from of old till now, and in their endurance they 
seem to demand of us just patience with all this sordid and 
brutal modern world, and in their solemn beauty to remind 
us of all that which cannot pass away. Here in the Veneto, 
on the eve, perhaps, of leaving Italy, it is some such re- 
assurance we need, that we may recall to mind the great 
Latin people which has created and preserved Europe and 
given us all that is worth having in the world, and shall yet 
if need be — and there will be need — secure it to us again. 
Here on the frontier let us remember it. 



INDEX 



Acre, 30 

Adalbati, the, 273 

Adige, the river, 3 

Adria, 5 

Aias, 68 

Alaric, his invasion of Italy, 6, 29, 

243, 288 
Alberoni, 209, 213 
Alberti, Duccio degli, tomb of, 

135 

Alboin, in Verona, 289 

Aldo, 191 

Alexander III, Pope, in Venice, 

109, 181 
Alexander IV, Pope, 237, 254 
Alexandria, 20, 45, 215 
Alexis, Emperor, 27 
Altichiero da Padua, 154 

His work in Padua, 262, 263 
in Verona, 301 
Alticlini, the, 244 
Altinum, history of, 5, II, 14, 206, 

221, 244 
Amadi, Angelo, 117 
Amadi, Francesco, 117 
Amalteo, Pomponio, his work in 

Treviso, 227 
Anafesto, Doge, 16 
Anastasius, Antipope, 96 
Ancona, 181 

Angelico, Fra, 82, 122, 228 
Antenor, 243 
Antonello da Messina, his work in 

Venice, 156 
His work in Vicenza, 282 
Antonio da Murano, his work in 

Venice, 140 
Antonio da Negroponte, Frat', his 

work in Venice, 102 
Antonio da Ponte, his work in 

Venice, 73, 114 
Antwerp Gallery, 136 



Aquileia, 5 

Bishop of, 45 

Sieges of, 8, 10, 117, 220, 244, 289 

Patriarchate of, 35, 43 
Aretino, Pietro, 92, 191 
Armenian Convent, Venice, 183 
Arqua, Petrarch at, 257, 264-270 
Ascension Day in Venice, 26, 100, 

107, 180-182 
Asolo, 90, 236 
Assisi, Giotto in, 251, 253 
Athens, 99 

Atrium, origin of the, 52 
Attila, his invasion of Italy, 9, il, 

206, 220, 221, 243 
Augustus Coesar, 5, 287 
Avanzo, Jacopo d', his work in 

Padua, 262, 263 
Azzo, Alberto, 273 

Baccio da Montelupo, his work in 

Venice, 134 
Badoer, Elena, 117 
Badoeri, the, 69, ill 
Baglioni, Orazio, statue of, 104 
Bagni di Lucca, 271 
Balbi, Zanetta, 191 
Baldwin, King of Jerusalem, 27 
Baone, 270 

Barattiere, Niccolo, 91 
Barbarelli, Giorgio, see Giorgione 
Barbarigo II, Doge, portrait of, 192 
Barbarigo, Agostino, 80 
Barbaro, Marcantonio, villa of, 236 
Barozzi, the, 117 
Basaiti, Marco,his work in Padua, 263 

His work in Venice, 135, 147, 
159, 192 
Basil, Emperor, 180 
Bassano, 236 

History of, 33, 36, 160, 225, 238, 
245, 247, 248 



309 



3IO 



his work in 



VENICE AND YENETIA 

Berengarius I, 298 ^^ 

Berenson, Bernhard, on Giotto, 251 

On Lotto, 161 
Bergamesco, Guglielmo, his work 

in Venice, 76, 190 
Bergamo, Attila overthrows, 221, 

289 
Berlin, Gallery at, 16 1, 190 
Bernini, school of, 103 
Bevagna, epistle of, 207 
Bibboni, Cecco, 131, 132 
Biscaro, Gazzetta di TrevisOy 228 

note 
Bissolo, Francesco, his work in ' 

Treviso, 227 
His work in Venice, 'jQ, 103, 159, 

Boccaccini, Boccaccio, his work in 
Venice, 108, 193 

Boccaccio, Giovanni, Chaucer's debt 
to, 149 
His friendship with Petrarch, 257, 

267 
On della Scala, 293 

Bocconio, Marino, conspiracy of, 69 

Bologna, 223, 248, 271 
S. Antony at, 260, 261 

Bonazzo, Giovanni, 93 

Bonconvento, 293 

Bondumiero, Andrea, 21 1 

Bonifazio, his work in Venice, 128, 
162 
Pupils of, 164, 239 

Bonsignori, his work in Verona, 
305 note, 306 

Bordone, Paris, his work in Treviso, 
225-227, 229 
His work in Venice, lOO, 160, 164 

Borgo Angarano, 241 

Bragadino, Marc Antonio, tomb of, 
103 

Brandenburg, Knights of, 301 

Bregno, Battista, his work in Tre- 
viso, 227 

Bregno, Lorenzo, his work in Tre- 
viso, 226, 227 
His work in Venice, 104, 134 

Brenner Pass, the, i, 285 

Brenta, the river, 3 

Brentettone, Canale, 236 

Brescia, 223, 287 
Fall of, 34, 225 

Brocardo, Antonio, 161 



Bassano — continued 
Sights of, 239-241 
Bassano, Francesco. 
Bassano, 239 
His work in Venice, 128, 170 
Bassano, Jacopo, his work in Bas- 
sano, 239-241 
His work in Cittadella, 241 
in Venice, 172 
in Vicenza, 282 
Bassano, Leandro, his work in Bas- 
sano, 239, 240 
His work in Venice, 78, 81, 112, 
129 
Bastiani, Lorenzo, his work in 

Venice, 196 
Battaglia, 264 
Bebo da Vol terra, 131, 132 
Beccaruzzi, Francesco, his work in 
Treviso, 229 
His work in Venice, 124 
Beethoven, 233, 234 
Bellano of Padua, 262 
Bellini, Gentile, his work in Venice, 

76, 155, 156 _ 
Bellini, Giovanni, his work in the 
Academy, Venice, 57, 88, 
126, 155 
His work in Berlin, 190 

in the Doge's Palace, Venice, 

76,81 
in Venetian churches, 96, 102, 
no, 113, 126, 134, 171, 190, 
192 
in Vicenza, 282 
School of, 149, 151, 153, 156-162, 
227, 229, 234, 279_ 
Bellini, Jacopo, his work in Venice, 

155. 255 
Bellini, Nicolosa, 255 
Belluno, 223, 224, 237, 245, 292 
Belmont, 236 

Bembo, Pietro, Asolani, 236 
In Venice, 191 
Tomb of, 262 
Benaglio, his work in Verona, 301 
Benedict H, Pope, 96 
Benoni, Giuseppe, his work in 

Venice, 147 
Benvenuto, Girolamo di, 150 
Benvenuto da Imola in Muratoi'ii 

250 note 
Benvenuto da Mola, on Giotto, 251 



INDEX 



311 



Brondolo, 18 

Brossano, Francesco da, 268 
Brown, Horatio, his works on the 
Venetian Republic, 17 note, 
143 note 
Quoted, 143, 145, 222 
Bruno, Francesco, 265 
Bua, Mercurio, 229 
BucentatiTo, the, 100, 121, i8l 
Buda Pesth, 161 
Bullones, Martin de, 259 
Buon, Bartolommeo, his work in 

Venice, 75, 86, 90, 125 
Buonconsiglio, his work in Venice, 
128 
His work in Vicenza, 283 
Buono da Malamocco, 46 
Burano, 187, 200, 205 
History of, 13, 14 
Lace school at, 202-205 
Buratti, Benedetto, his work in 

Venice, 172 
Byrd, 234 

Byron, Lord, in Venice, 179, 183, 
184 
On I Cappucini, 271 
Byzantium, relations with Venice, 
15, 16, 18, 27-29, 37, 154 

Cadore, i52 

Caerano di S. Marco, 236 

Cagliari, 31 

Caldiero, 284 

Caloprini, the, 20 

Camaldolesi, the, 190 

Cambrai, League of, 'j?), 80, 104, 

152, 240 
Campagna, his work in Venice, 108, 

III, 120, 133, 170 
Campagnola, Domenico, 258 
Canaletto, his work at Windsor, 89 

His work in Venice, 168 
Candia, 115 
Candiani, the, 20 
Cannae, battle of, 243, 286 
Canova, his work in Bassano, 240 

Tomb of, 136 
Capello, Andrea, portrait of, 166 
Capello, Bianca. 95, 203 
Cappelletti, the, 290, 297 
Cappello, Vittorio, portrait of, 130 
Caprioli, 229 
Caroldo, Maria, 144 



Carole, 14 

Caroto, his work in Verona, 300 
Carpaccio, Vittore, his work in the 
Accademia, 76, 157 
His work in Venetian churches, 

loi, 114, 152, 216 
Position and influence of, 149, 
151, 156, 158, 279 
Carraresi, the, 238, 255 
In Cittadella, 241 
In Padua, 244-249 
In Vicenza, 276 
see Francesco Jacopo,and Marsilio 
da Carrara 
Cassiodorus, on Venice, 12 
Castelfranco, 160, 192, 200, 230-236 
Birthplace of Giorgione, 231-234 
Castellani, the, faction of, 143 
Castello, 18 
Castoro, Fra, 305 
Catania, 302 
Catena, his work in Venice, 76, 81, 

loi, 128, 158 
Catullus at Sermione, 5 
Cavalli, Jacopo, his work in Verona, 
298 
Tomb of, 104 
Ceneda, 248 
Cephalonia, 193 
Charlemagne, Emperor, in Italy, 9, 

17, 221, 244, 290 
Charles V, portrait of, 239 
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 149 
Chigi-Giovanelli, Principessa Maria, 

203 
Chioggia, early history of, 14, 18, 

32 
School of lace at, 204, 215 
War of, 93, 209, 212, 215-217, 
^ 221, 247, 293 
Chopin, 233 

Cicogna, Doge Pasquale, portrait of, 
80 
Tomb of, 120 
Cima da Conegliano, his work in 
Berlin, 190 
His work in Venice, 76, 100, 124, 

141, .157 

in Vicenza, 282 

Pupils of, 161 
CipoUino, pillars of, 62 
Ciitadella, 241 
Claude, 274 



312 



VENICE AND YENETIA 



Claudian, on the fall of the Empire 

8 
On Verona, 285, 289 
Claudius II, 287 
Clement IX, Pope, 144 
Cleomenes of Sparta, 243 
Coimbra, 259 
Colleoni, Bartolommeo, statue of, 

103 
Cologne, 157 
Columbini of Siena, Blessed 

Giovanni, 144 
Como, 223 
Concordia, 1 1 
Conegliano, 158 
Conradin, in Verona, 292 
Constantine, Emperor, 58, 186 

Besieges Verona, 287, 288 
Constantinople, fall of, 29, 151, 

Greek Empire, restored in, 30 
Intercourse with Venice, 21, 27, 
180 ; see also Byzantium 
Contarini, Alessandro, tomb of, 125, 

262 
Contarini, Doge, tomb of, 115, 

125 
Contarini del Zaffo, the, legend of, 

1 18-120 
Contenti, Lodovico, 210 
Corfu, 115 
Cornaro, Caterina, Queen of Cyprus, 

III, 236, 262 
Corner, Doge Marco, 118 

Tomb of, 104 
Correr Collection, 128 
Cortona, Aurelio, 139 
Council of Ten, the, creation of, 24, 

69 
Crasso, Niccold, 142 
Cremona, 292 
Crespignaga, 236 
Crete, 29 

Cristoforo, Doge, 73, 75 
Crociferi, the, in Venice, 120, 146 
Cromwell, Oliver, 69 
Crowe and Cavalcaselle, on Giotto, 

250-253 
On Titian, 124, 302 
Crusades, the, wealth gained by, 21, 

27-29 
Curzola, battle of, 26, 30, 68, 93, 

180 



Cyclades, the, 29 
Cyprus, 103, 236 

Dalmatia, capture of, 27, 29 

Dukedom of, 26 

Hungarian claim on, 246 
Dalmatian pirates, raids of, 25-27, 

98, 180 
Dandolo, Doge Andrea, 30, 64, 68 

His tomb, 65 
Dandolo, Doge Enrico, 29, 58 
Dandolo, Doge Francesco, 70 
Dandolo, Geronimo, 30 
D'Annunzio, Gabriele, 79, 265 
Dante, in Padua, 151, 250, 253, 257 

In Verona, 151, 285, 292, 298 

Inferno, 238, 250, 291 

Paradiso, 292 
Dennistoun, James, Dukes of Ur- 

binoi 121 note 
Desiderio da Settignano, 64 
Diocletian, 295 
D' Israeli, Benjamin, 21, 265 
DogaressaSjthe, protect lace-makers, 
203 

Sumptuary laws for, 203 
Doges, the coronation of, 96 

Election of, 16, 19-24 

Portraits of, 80-82 

Tombs of, 103 
Doge's Palace, Venice, Bridge of 
Sighs, 73 

Interior of, 76-83 

Its courtyard and staircase, 75, 76 

Its erection, 68-70, 73 

Its facades, 69-75 

Its gates, 75 

Its predecessors, 62> 

Its sculpture, 74 

Its site, 6*] 

Sala del Maggior Consiglio, 70, 
73, 75, 81, 155 

Suffers by fire, 73, t6 
Dolcino, Frate, 296 
Dolfino, Pietro, Chronicle of, 68 
Dona, the, 121 

Donatello,his statue of Gattamelata, 
258 

His work in Padua, 155, 262 
in Venice, 135 

Influence of, 256, 301 
Donato, Doge Francesco, portrait 
of, 79 



INDEX 



313 



Doria, Lamba, 68 
Doria, Luciano, 31 
Doria, Paganino, 31 
Doria, Pietro, 31, 35, 247 
Douglas, H. A., 118 note, 251 

"Venice on Foot," 88 note 
Duccio, school of, 148, 150 
Duse, Eleanora, 297 

Ecelini, the, in Bassano, 238, 239 
Ecelino da Romano in Padua, 237, 
258 

In Verona, 244, 285, 291, 293 

In Vicenza, 244, 276 

Reproved by S. Antony, 261 
Erasmo da Narni, 259 
Ermagoras, Bishop of Aquileia, 45 
Este, 264, 272, 277 
Este, the d', 292 

Este, Alberto Azzo, Marquis d', 273 
Este, Almerico d', 134 
Este, Anna Bellorio d', 204 
Este, Niccolo d', 127 
Etna, 286 
Euganean Hills, 169, 182, 189, 242, 

264-273 
Eugenius IV., Pope, 255 
Evelyn, John, on Padua, 249 

On Venice, 90, 105 

On Vicenza, 280 

Faliero, Beatrice, 191 
Faliero, Doge Marino, conspiracy 
of, 31. 35> 70, 246 

House of, 117 
Faliero, Doge Ordelafo, 171 
Faliero, Doge Vitale, 114 

Re-discovers body of S. Mark, 48 
Fambri, Paolo, 203 
Farnese, Vittoria, marriage of, 121 
Feltre, 223, 224, 235, 237, 245, 247, 
292 

History and position of, 36 
Ferdinand L, 133 
Feria dell' Ascensione, 107 
Ferrar, Nicholas, in Padua, 250 
Ferrara, Marquisate of, see d'Este 
family 

Wars of, 24, 33, 222, 223 
Florence, 19 

Giotto in, 251 

Her great men, 151, 270 



Florence — continued 

Pitti Palace, 232 

Uffizi, 161, 235 

University of, 257 
Florentine School of Painting, 148, 

150 

Fortunatus of Grado, 18 

Foscari, Doge Francesco, his addi- 
tions to the Palace, 72, 73, 

75 
Tomb of, 135 
Francesco da Carrara, treachery of, 

31 > 35. 36, 248, 266 
Francesco Maria, Duke of Urbino, 

in Venice, 121 
Francis I, Emperor, 58 
Frederic II, 276, 290 
Frederic Barbarossa, Emperor, in 

Italy, 244, 290 
In Venice, 109, 181 
Fregoso, General, 300 
Friuli, 2, 220 
Fusina, 249 

Gabrieli, the, 203 

Galata, 30 

Galileo, 151 

Galuppi, Baldassare, 202 

Garda, Lago di, 2 

Garibaldi, monument to, 97 

Gattamelata, General, statue of, 258, 

259 
Tomb of, 262 
Gavazza, Girolamo, 124 
Genoa, its rivalry with Venice, 27, 

29-35, 212, 217, 221, 223, 

246, 247 
Genseric, 9 
Gentile da Fabriano, his w^ork in 

Venice, 76, 82, 154, 155 
Ghibellines in Verona, 290 
Ghirlandajo, 152 
Giambattista of Verona, his work in 

Verona, 302 
Gibbon, on Attila, 220 

On the siege of Verona, 287-289 
The Decline and Fall of the 

Roman Empire., 1 1 note 
Giocondo, Era, his work in Treviso, 

226 
His work in Verona, 299 
Giolfino, 302 
Giorgione, his portraits, 161 



314 



VENICE AND YENETIA 



Giorgione — continued 

His work in Castelfranco, 23 1 , 234 
in Venice, 76-82, 114, 1 21-123, 

147, 149, 160 
inVicenza, 235 
Life and position of, 160, 231-235 
School of, III, 112, 113, 123, 158, 
161, 162 
Giotto, 109 

Date of his works, 251 

His work in Padua, 154, 250-254 

in Verona, 293 
School of, 148, 150, 152, 154 
Giovanelli, the, 121 
Giovanelli Collection, the, 156, 160, 

233 
Giovanni, Doge, portrait of, 130 
Giovanni da Murano, his work in 

Venice, 140, 154 
Giovanni da Vicenza, Fra, 291 
Girolamo da S. Croce, his work in 
Padua, 258 
His work in Venice, 100, 102, 108 
Girolamo daTreviso, his school, 158 
His work in Venice, 117, 147 
in Treviso, 227 
Girolamo dai Libri, 298, 305, 306 
Giustiniani, the, tombs of, 185 
Giustiniani, Lorenzo, portrait of, 

124, 156 
Goethe, on Palladio, 278, 281 
Goldoni, Carlo, statue of, iii, 117 
Gonzaga, the, 224 
Gradenigo I, Doge, policy of, 68-70, 

223 
Gradenigo II, Doge, 70 
Grado, 5, 13, 15 

Seat of Patriarchate, 18, 43 
Gratiani, 260 

Greater Council of Venice, 22-24, 69 
Gregory VII, Pope, 290 
Gregory IX, Pope, 261 
Gregory XI, Pope, 265 
Gregory XVI, Pope, 190 
Grimani, Doge Antonio, portrait of, 

n 

Grimani, Doge Marino, 203 

Portrait of, 77 
Gritti, Doge Andrea portrait of, 79 
Gronau, Dr., on Titian, iii, 124, 

.129, 139, 228 note, 302 
Guardi, his work in Venice, 168, 
190 



Guariento of Padua, his work in 
Bassano, 239, 240 
His work destroyed by fire, 70, 

82 
His work in Padua, 255 
Portrait of, 305 
Guelfs in Verona, 290 
Guglielmo da Castelbarco, 301 
Guidobaldo II, Duke of Urbino, 
121 

Hampton Court, 232 

Harold the Tall, 99 

Heneti, the, 4 

Henry III of England, 72 

Henry IV, Emperor, 290 

Henry VII, Emperor, death of, 293 

Plenry VIII of England, 21 

Henry of Luxembourg, 244 

Heraclea, early history of, 14, 16, 

17 
Hohenstaufen, the, 292 
Homer, 269 
Hoppner, Mr., 271 
Howell, James, on Murano, 197, 

198 
Hutton, Edward, ed. Crowe and 

Cavalcaselle, History of 

Painting in Italy, 250 note 
ed. Memoirs of Dukes of Urbino^ 

121 note 
Florence and Northern Tuscany ., 

30 note 

II Gobbo, 130 

II Mantagnana, 89 

Innocent III, Pope, 28 

Innspruck, 285 

Isonzo river, the, 4 

Istrana, 230 

Istria, 14, 90 

Jacopo da Carrara ^ his Lordship of 
Padua, 36, 245-249 
Tomb of, 255 
James II, King of Cyprus, 236 
Jeronymite Order, the, 141 
Jesolo, 16, 17 
Jones, Inigo, 278 
Jornandes on Aquileia, 1 1 note 
Jovinus, 10 
Julius Ccesar, 2 



INDEX 



315 



Lagoons, the Venetian, formation 

of, 3 
Lagosta, 180 
Lamberti, the, 298 
Lando, Doge Pietro, portrait of, 

80 
Lanzi, on Giorgione, 235 
Lasso, di, 234 
La Verna, 261 
Law, John, 115 
Leo, Pope, 9 
Leo V, Emperor, 17, 46 
Leonardo da Vinci, 151 
Leopardi, Alessandro, 88 
Lepanto, battle of, 80, 103, 104 
Liberale, his work in Verona, 298, 

300, 301, 302 
Libro d'Oro, the, 23, 76, 81 
Liesina, siege of, 26, 31 
Lincoln Cathedral, 133 
Lippi, Filippo, 228 
Lisbon, 259 
Little Gidding, 250 
Liutprand the Lombard, his treaty 

with Venice, 16 
Seizes Ravenna, 17 
Lombard League, 290 
Lombardo, Antonio, his work in 

Venice, 103 
Lombardo, Martino, his work in 

Venice, 95, 103, 190 
Lombardo, Moro, his work in 

Venice, 113 
Lombardo, Pietro, his work in 

Venice, 86, 103, 104, 117, 

134, 135, 190 
Lombardo, Tommaso, his work in 

Venice, 142 
Lombardo, TuUio, his work in 

Padua, 262 
His work in Treviso, 226, 227, 

229 
in Venice, 103, 109 
Lombardy, plain of, 2 
Longhena, Baldassare, his work in 

Venice, 126, 145-147, 216 
Longinus, 15 

Longobards, the, in Verona, 289 
Loredan, Doge Leonardo, portrait 

of, 81, 158 
Tomb of, 104 
Loredan, Doge Lorenzo, portrait 

of, 80 



Loredan, Doge Pietro, portrait of, 

80 
Loredani, the, tombs of, 185 
Lotto, Lorenzo, his work in Asolo, 

236 
His work in Treviso, 225, 229 
in Venice, 97, 104, 125, 128, 

141, 161 
Lucca, 271, 293 
Luzzo, Pietro, 235 
Lysippus, 58 

Macaruzzi, the, 108 

Maddalo, Count, 179, 185 

Madonna del Monte, 277, 283 

Madrid, 234, 270 

Magnati di Murano, Girolamo, 197 

Malamocco, 209, 212, 213 

Early settlement on, 12, 14, 16- 
18 
Malchiostro, Broccardo, 227 
Malipiero, Dandola, 203 
INIalipiero, Doge Pasquale, 203 

Tomb of, 104 
Manning, Cardinal, 120 
Mantegna, Andrea, his work in 
Padua, 255-257 

His work in Verona, 304, 305 

School of, 240, 279 
Mantegna, Biagio, 255 
Mantua, 3, 5, 224, 275, 292 
Manuel, Emperor, 21, 28 
Marcello, Conte Alessandro, 203 
Marcello, Contessa Adriana, 203 
Marcello, Doge Niccolo, tomb of, 

104 
Marcello, Jacopo, tomb of, 134 
Marconi, Rocco, his work in Tre- 
viso, 225 

His work in Venice, 129 
Marcus, the vision of, 14 
Marcus Aurelius, 7 

Statue of, 259 
Margherita, Queen, 203 
Marsilio da Carrara treats with 
Venice, 34, 223-225, 245- 
249, 293 
Martinelli, Tommaso, 270 
Martini, Simone, 109, 228 
Masaccio, 148 
Maser, 236 

Massegne, his work in Venice, 95, 
104, 133. 136 



3i6 



VENICE AND VENETIA 



Massolo, Elisabetta, 120 
Massolo, Lorenzo, 120 
Maurice the Cappadocian, 15 
Maurizio, 18 
Mauro, vision of, 207 
Maxentius, 287 
Maximilian, Emperor, 124 
Maximus, 10 
Medici, the, 19 
At Este, 272 
Medici, Alessandro de', 131 
Medici, Lorenzino de', murder of, 

^. .131 

Medici, Lorenzo de', poems oi, 152 
Memmo, Doge Marcantonio, tomb 

of, 172 
Memmo, Doge Tribune, 171 
Meloria, battle of, 30, 68 
Messina, S. Francis at, 260 
Mestre, 219 

Michelangelo Buonarroti, position 
and influence of, 148, 151, 
161, 164, 227, 234 
Michelozzo da Firenze, 172 
Michiel, Alvise, tomb of, 103 
Michiel, Doge Domenico, 91, 193 
Michiel II, Doge Vitale, 21 
Milan, 2, 223, 290 

Attila in, 221 

Duchess of, 36 
Milton, John, 149 
Mincio, the river, 2 
Minello, Giovanni, 255 
Minio da Padua, 64 
Miscellanea Francescana^ 102 note 
Mocenigo, Andrea, 79 
Mocenigo I, Doge, 93 

His vandalism, 71-73 
Mocenigo, Doge Alvise, portrait of, 

79 
Mocenigo, Doge Giovanni, tomb 

of, 103 
Mocenigo, Doge Luigi, tomb of, 

103 
Mocenigo, Doge Pietro, tomb of, 

103 
Mocenigo, Doge Tommaso, tomb 

of, 104 
Mocenigo, Niccolo, 79 
Mogliano, 219 
Molmenti e Mantovani, Le Isole 

del la Laguna Venela, 210 

note, 212, 213 



Monaco, Lorenzo, 228 

Monferrat, Boniface, Marquis of, 

29 
Monselice, S. Fermo, 97 
Montagna, Bartolommeo, his work 
in Verona, 306 

His work in Vicenza, 276, 279, 
282, 283 
Mont' Cenis Pass, i, 287 
Montebello, 284 
Montebelluna, 236 
Monte Berici, 284 
Montecchi, the, faction of, 284, 290 
Monte del Castello, 270 
Monteforte, 284 
Monte Paolo, 260 
Montpellier, 261 
Moore, Thomas, 183 
Morelli, on Giorgione, 235 

On Palma Vecchio, 161 
Moretto, his work in Venice, 97 

his work in Verona, 303 
Morone, Francesco, his work in 

Verona, 300, 306 
Morosini, the, 20 
Morosini, Admiral Alberto, 30 
Morosini, Carlo, portrait of, 166 
Morosini, Cipriani, 191 
Morosini, Doge Francesco, his 

work in Venice, 99, 114 
Morosini, Doge Michele, tomb of, 

104 
Morosini, Doge Vincenzo, portrait 

of, 172 
Morosini, Morosina, 203 
Morosini, Ruggiero, 30 
Morto da Feltre, 235 
Mozart, 234 
Munich, no 
Murano, 94, 168 

Charm of, 187-189 

Glass factories, 189, 191, 197 

S. Donato, 192-196 

S. Pietro Martiro, 190, 192 
Murray, John, 183 
Muschiera, Eugenia, 191 

Naldo, Dionigi, tomb of, 104 

Naples, 187, 272 

Napoleon I, his treatment of Venice, 

26, 37, 43, 49, 58, 86, 88, 

92, 97, 181, 211 
In Verona, 297 



INDEX 



317 



Narses, 15, 91 
Navagero, Andrea, 191 
Nero, Emperor, 45 

His bronze horses, 56-58, 259 
Nicephorus, Emperor, 18 
Niccolo da Ponte, Doge, portraits of, 

79, 81 
Nicolotti, the faction of, 143 
Nightingale, Florence, 204 
Novara, 296 

Obelerio, Doge, 18 

Portrait of, 81 
Odoacer, 289 
Olivolo, 18 
Onigo, Conte d', 229 
Oriago, 247 
Orseoli, the, 20 
Orseolo, Doge Pietro, his hospital, 

88 
Orseolo II, Doge Pietro, curbs the 
great families, 20 

Establishes maritime supremacy, 
20, 26, 180-182, 185 
Orsini, Niccolo, tomb of, 104 
Orso, Doge, 17 
Osa da Milano, Alberto, 244 
Otho III, Emperor, in Venice, 184, 

185, 193 
Ottobon family, the, 162 

Pacchia, 150 
Pacchiarotto, 150 
Pacifico, Era, tomb of, 134 
Padovano, the, 2 
Padovano, Giusto, 258 
Padua, 115, 223, 275 

History of, 5, 11, 34-36, 225, 237, 
238, 243-249, 261 

Arena Chapel, 250-254 

Attila in, 221, 243 

Church of the Carmine, 257 

Eremitani, 254-257 

Frescoes by Mantegna in, 255-257 

Giotto in, 154, 250-254 

II Santo, 258, 262 

John Evelyn in, 249-251 

Palazzo del Municipio, 258 

Petrarch in, 257 

S. Anthony in, 249, 261 
Paese, 230 

Paleologus, Emperor, 31 
Palestrina, 234 



Palladio, Andrea, his bridge over the 
Brenta, 240 
His work in Maser, 236 

in Venice, 38, 73, 77, 102, 

168, 170, 171 
in Vicenza, 276-282 
Palma Giovane, his work in the 
Doge's Palace, 76-82 
His work in Venetian Churches, 
125, 163 
Palma Vecchio, his work in Padua, 
258 
His work in Venice, 112, 129, 
161, 162, 211, 216 
in Vicenza, 282 
Paphos, Bishop of, 136 
Paris, The Louvre, no, 232, 233 
Parma, 224, 292 
Parmigiano, pupils of, 164 
Particiaco, Doge Angelo, 20, 96 
Pater, Walter, on art, 160, 233 
Paterani, the, in Verona, 296 
Paul II, Pope, 65 
Paul the Deacon, 185 
Paulus, Bishop, 14 
Pavia, 115, 181, 221, 292 
Pax Romana, the, 6 
Peacock, T. L. , 271 
Pedro, Don, 259 
Pelestrina, 18, 209, 213-215 
Pentapolis, siege of, 17 
Pepin, his expedition against Venice, 
17-19, 211 
In Verona, 290, 303 
Pera, 31 
Perugino, 234 
Pesari, the, 127 
Pesaro, Benedetto, tomb of, 134, 

136 
Pesaro, Jacopo, commissions Titian, 

136 
Petrarch in Arqua, 265-270 

In Padua, 257 

In Venice, 31 
Philip the Arab, 287 
Philippi, battle of, 287 
Piacenza, 292 
Piave, the river, 3, 223 
Pietro da Messina, 112 
Pietro da Salo, 130 
Piombo, Sebastiano del, his work 
in Treviso, 229 

His work in Venice, in, 113, 161 



3i8 



VENICE AND VENETIA 



Pisa, history of, 27, 222, 242, 243 

Pisani, Niccolo, 31 

Pisani, Vettor, 31, 32 

Pisano, Giovanni, his work in 

Padua, 254 
Pisano, Vittore, his work in Venice, 

1^^ 155 
His work in Verona, 301, 305 

Pius II, Pope, 152 

Pius V, Pope, 255 

Pius VI, Pope, 297 

Pius VII, Pope, 171 

Pizzolo, Niccolo, 256 

Po, the river, i 

Pola, 31 

Polenta, Samaritanada, 296 

Polesine, the, 2 

Pollen tia, 288 

Polo, Marco, 152 

Pompeianus, Ruricus, 287 

Pordenone, his work in Treviso, 

227, 228 
His work in Venice, 130, 135, 162 
Portosecco, 213 
Posilipo, 269 
Possagno, 240 
Preganziol, 219 
PriuH, Doge, Antonio, 128 
Priuli, Doge, Girolamo, portrait of, 

80 
Tomb of, III 
Priuli, Doge, Lorenzo, portraits of, 

76, 80 
Tomb of. III 

Quarterly Review^ lOO note 
Querini, the, 69 

Ranieri, the, 203 
Ravenna, 211, 237, 257 
History of, 5, 13, 17 
Reggio, 292 
Rembrandt, 149 
Renaissance, the, in Venice, 84 
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 150 
Rialto, island of, first occupation 

of, 12, 13, 18 
Richard HI, 202 
Ridolfi on Giorgione, 231, 235 
Rimini, 123 
Rizzo, Antonio, his work in Venice, 

76, 86, 130 
Robert, King, Venetian expedition 

against, 27 



Romano, Rocca of, 237 

Rogers, Dr., 250 

Rogers, Samuel, 271 

Roland and Oliver in Verona, 290, 

302 
Roman Empire, the fall of, 5-9 
Romanino, 263 
Romano, Giulio, 190 

Pupils of, 298 
Rome, 44, 115 

Borghese Gallery, 161, 232, 233 

Colosseum, 295 note 

Giotto in, 251 

Piazze of, 85 
Ronchi, the, 245 
Rosamund, Queen, 289 
Rossi, Pietro, 34 

Rossi, the, allied with Venice, 224 
Rubens, P. P., 150 
Ruskin, John, on S. Donato, 193- 
196 

On Tintoretto, 124, 137, 147 

Stones of Venice^ 48 note, 68 
note, 70 note, 73 note, 300 
note 
Rustico da Torcello, 46 

S. Agata, 302 

Salvatronda, 230 

Salviati, his work in Venice, 134 

Salvore, battle of, 181 

Sanmicheli, his work in Verona, 

302, 304, 306 
Sansovino, Francesco, his work in 
the Doge's Palace, 73, 76, 81 

On Gradenigo I, 68. 69 

On Venice, 91, 196 
Sansovino, Jacopo, his Loggia, 89, 

His work in Venice, 90, 92, 100, 
loi, 102, 108, 121, 128, 136, 
142, 211 
Santi, Andreolo dei, his work in 

Padua, 255, 262 
S. Antony of Padua, history of, 249, 
259-262 
In Bassano, 239 
Sanuto, Cronica, 72 note 
Sapienza, battle of, 31, 35, 246 
Sardi, his work in Venice, 115 
Sarego, General, 301 
Sassetta, 83, 148 
Sassoferrato, his work in Venice, 112 



INDEX 



319 



S. Augustine, 254 

S. Autolinus, 14 

Saveili, Prince Paolo, statue of, 134 

S. Bernardino, 131 

Scala, Alberto della, career of, 292, 

293. 298, 300 
Scala, Alboino della, 292 
Scala, Antonio della, 296 
Scala, Bartolommeo della, 292, 294 
Scala, Can Grande della, career of, 

292, 293, 299 
Welcomes Dante, 223, 285, 292 
Scala, Can Grande II. della, in 

Verona, 294, 301, 303 
Scala, Can Signorio della, in 

Verona, 294, 298, 299, 300 
Scala, Giovanni della, tomb of, 300 
Scala, Mastino della, his relations 

with Venice, 33, 34, 223-225, 

245, 291-294, 300 
Seizes Padua, 238, 244 
Scaligers, the, at war with Venice, 

33. 244 

In Verona, 284, 298-300 

In Vicerza, 277 
Scamozzi, his work in Venice, 86, 92 

His work in Vicenza, 280 
Scarpariola, Cencia, 204 
S. Clement, 63 
S. Cristina, 229 
Scrovegno, Enrico, and Rinaldo, 

250, 254 
S. Donato, body of, 193 
S. Edward the Confessor, 46, 47 
Segala, 64 
Selvaggia, 291 
Semilicolo, Niccolo, 153 
Sermione, 5 
Seville, 107 
S. Fermo, 295 

S. Francis of Assisi, his influence 
on S. Antony, 260, 261 

In Bassano, 239 

In Venice, 207 
S. George, patron of Venice, 57 
S. Girolamo da Fiesole, 210 
S. Giustina, 14 
S. Gotthard, the, i 
S. Gregory II, 17 
Shakespeare, William, 149, 160 

Romeo and Juliet, 284, 290, 
297 

Two Gentlemen of Verona, 285 



S. Helena, 186 

Shelley, P. B., at Este, 264, 271-273 

In Venice, 179, 182, 271 

On Padua, 242 
Shorthouse, J. Yl., John Ingle sajtt, 

250 
Sidon, 27 
Siena, 19 
Sienese School of Painting, the, 

148, 150, 234 
Simplon, the, i 
S. Jean d'Acre, 59 
S. John, martyrdom of, 64 
S. John the Baptist, 14 
S. Leo IX, III 
S. Lorenzo Giustiniani, portrait of, 

80 
S. Magno, foundations by, 96, 100, 

III, 118 
S. Mark, his body brought to 
Venice, 20, 46-48, 56 

Legendary history of, 44 
S. Mark's, Venice, Atrium, 52, 59- 
61 

Baptistery, 64 

Bronze horses, 56-58 

Chapels of, 63-65 

Cupolas of, 61, 65 

Its Byzantine character, 48-52 

Its construction, 51, 54-56 

Its fagades, 55-59 

Its significance in Venetian his- 
tory, 43, 52, 65 

Mosaics of, 56, 152 

Shrine of S. Mark, 62 
S. Martino, 284 
S. Nicholas of Tolentino, 255 
Soave, 284 

Soderini, Alessandro, 131 
Sodoma, 150 
Sophocles, (Edipns TyrannuSy 280- 

282 
Soranzo, Ancilla, 191 
Soranzo, Doge, Giovanni, 70 
Soranzo, Jacopo, 166 
Sordello, 285 
Sovagna, Marquis of, 263 
Spalatro, 115 
Spenser, Edmund, 149 
Speranza, his work in Vicenza, 282 
S. Pietro, 214 

S. Pietro di Castello, seat of 
Patriarchate, 43 



320 



VENICE AND YENETIA 



Spinelli, Bianca, 210 

Spinola, Niccolo, 68 

Splugen, the, 1 

Sporades, the, 29 

Sposalizio del Mare, 26, see Ascen- 
sion Day 

Squarcione, school of, 255, 256, 
263 

S. Roch, body of, 137 

S. Rustico, 295 

St. Albans, 10 

Steno, Doge Michele, 70, 89, 
104 

S. Theodore, patron saint of Venice, 

44, S1^ 91 
S. Thomas of Villanova, 255 
Stilicho, 288 
Strabo on Venice, 4 
Strasburg, 106 
Strong, on Giotto, 251 
Suriano, Jacopo, tomb of, 115 
Symonds, J. A., History of the 

Renaissance^ 13 1 
S. Zaccaria, 96 
S. Zeno of Verona, 289, 304 

Tagaste, 254 

Taranto, 25 

Tasso in Padua, 250 

Tenedor, Island of, 31 

Tesolo, 19 

Tessier, A., 102 note 

Theodoric the Great, 12 

In Verona, 289, 296, 303 
Theodosius, 10 
Thomas of Ravenna, 108 
Tiberio da Parma, 124 
Tiepolo, his work in Padua, 263 
His work in Venice, 118, 126, 
141, 144, 166 
in Vicenza, 282 
Tiepolo, Doge Giacomo, vision of, 

102 
Tiepolo, Lorenzo, 59 
Tiepolo conspiracy, the, 69, 114 
Tintoretto, Jacopo, contrasted with 
Giorgione, 234 
His Paradise, 70 

His work in the Accademia, 149, 
163-166 
in the Doge's Palace, 76-83 
in the Scuola di S. Rocco, 
137-139, 165 



Tintoretto, Jacopo — contiriued 

in Venetian churches, 98, 120, 

124, 125, 128, 129, 139, 141, 

143, 144, 146, 170, 172, 216 

in Vicenza, 282 

Tomb of, 124 

Titian, contrasted with Giorgione, 

234 
.Death of, 144 

His work in the Accademia, 149, 
162 
in the Doge's Palace, 76, 77, 

83 
in Padua, 258, 263 
in Rome, 126 
in Treviso, 227, 228 
in Venetian churches, 109, iii, 
120, 123, 129, 135-139, 142, 
146, 211 
in Verona, 302 
Influence of Giorgione on, 160, 

161 
Likeness of, 134 
Pupils of, 164 
Tomb of, 133 
Torcello, 143, 187, 199 

History of, 12, 14, 205, 206 
Totila, 9, 237 
Toulouse, 261 
Tradonico, Doge Pietro, murder of, 

95 

Trajan, Emperor, 58, 295 
Tremignan, Alessandro, 115 
Trepani, 30 
Trevisano, Doge Marc Antonio, 

portrait of, 80 
Trevisano, Melchior, monument of, 

135 
Treviso, 5, 33, 160, 244, 245, 293 

Churches of, 226-229 

History of, 219-225 

Marches of, 2 

Siege of, 246 
Tribunes, the, government of, 16 
Tribuno, Doge Pietro, 87, 89 
Tron, Doge Niccolo, tomb of, 135 
Tuscany, Bianca, Grand Duchess 

of, 95 
Francesco, Grand Duke of, 203 
Tyre, fall of, 27, 65, 91 

Ubertino da Carrara, tomb of, 255 
Uccello, Paolo, 256 



INDEX 



321 



Umbrian School of Painting, 148, 

Urbino, Dukes of, their Palazzo in 
Venice, 121 

Valencia Bull Ring, 295 note 
Valier, the, tomb of, 103 
Valle, Andrea della, 258 
Vandyck, 150 
Vasari on Bellini, 96 

On Catena, 158 

On Giorgione, 231, 232, 234 

On Titian, 77, 109, no, 123, 
146 
Vecelli, Francesco, no 
Vecelli, Marco, 80 
Vecelli, Rocco, 130 
Vedelago, 230, 232 
Velasquez, 129, 150 
Vendramin, Doge, Andrea, tomb of, 

104 
Venetia as a Roman province, 4 

Geographical position of, 2 
Venetian lace, 202-205 
Venetian School of Painting, con- 
trasted with other schools, 
148-154 

Influences on, 154-156 

Its national character, 151, 153, 

Veneziano, Lorenzo, his work in 
Venice, 151, 153 
His work in Vicenza, 279 
Venice, City of— 

Accademia, 153-166 
Armenian convent, 183 
Arsenal, 99 
Batario, 86 
Bridge of Sighs, 73 
Brolo, 87 

Bronze Horses, 92 
Cad'Oro, 116, 118 
Campanile, 85, 88-91 
Campo S. Gallo, 88 

di S. Margherita, 140 

di S. Maria Zobenigo, 85 

di S. Moise, 85 

diS. Polo, 130-132 
Casino degli Spiriti, 118-120 
Churches of — 

Carmine, 141 

I Frari, 102, I32-I37> I53> 163 

I Gesuati, 143, 144 



Churches — continued 
I Gesuiti, 116, 120 
La Pieia, 97 

Redentore, 145, 170, 173 
Scalzi, 126 
S. Antonino, lOO, lOl 
S. Aponal, 130 
SS. Apostoli, 116-118 
S. Bartolommeo, in, 161 
S. Basso, 93 
S. Biagio, 97, loi 
S. Canciano, 117 
S. Cassiano, 128 
S. Caterina, 121 
S.Cristofero, 190 
S. Demetrio, in 
S. Elena, 130 
S. Eufemia, 169, 173 
S. Felice, 116, 121 
S. Fosca, 123 
S. Francesco da Paola, 97 
S. Francesco della Vigna, 102 
S. Geminiano, 87, 88 
S. Geremia, 126 
S. Giacomo dell' Orio, 128, 

161 
S. Giacomo di Rialto, 130 
S. Giobbe, 125, 137, 141 
S. Giorgio dei Greci, 100 
S. Giorgio degli Schiavoni, lOi, 

S. Giovanni in Bragora, 100 
S. Giovanni Crisostomo, II2- 

114, 116, 117, 161 
S. Giovanni Decollato, 128 
S. Giovanni di Malta, loi 
SS. Giovanni e Paolo, 102- 

104, 161 
S. Giovanni in Rialto, 129 
S. Giuseppe di Castello, 98, 143 
S. Gregorio, 147 
S. Leo, III 

S. Marcuola, 116, 126, 162 
S. Margherita, 140 
S. Maria della Carita, 109 
S. Maria Formosa, 99, III, 

112, 161 
S. Maria Maggiore, 163 
S. Maria Mater Domini, 159 
S. Maria dei Miracoli, 116, 117 
S. Maria della Salute, 137, 

144-147, 211 
S. Maria Zobenigo, 115 



322 



VENICE AND VENETIA 



Churches — continued 

S. Mark's Cathedral, 42-66, 

see S._ Mark's 
S. Martino, 100 
S. Marzida, 123 
S. Maurizio, 115 
S. Michele, 119 
S. Moise, 115 
S. Niccolo, 176 

Ognissanti, 143 
S. Pantaleone, 130, 140 
S. Pietro di Castello, 98 
S. Polo, 132 

S. Rocco, 137, 139, 141, 160 
S. Salvatore, 106, 109 
S. Sebastiano, 137, 141 
S. Sofia, 118 
S. Stefano, 114, 115 
S. Teodoro, 47, 86 
S. Toma, 133, 134, 137 
SS. Trinita, 147 
S. Trovaso, 143, 155 
S. Ursula, loi 
S. Vitale, 1 14 
S. Zaccaria, 95 
S. Zulian, 105-108 
Clock Tower of, 86, 106 
Columns of S. Theodore and S. 

Mark, 91 
Corso Vittorio Emmanuele, 118 
Dogana, 146, 147 
Doge's Palace, the, 67-83, see 

Doge 
Flagstaffs, 88 
Fondaco dei Tedeschi, 105, 112, 

113 » . 
Fondaco dei Turchi, 68, 127 
Fondamenta Nuove, 116, 118 
Forte S. Niccolo, 180 
Galleria Manfredini, 147 
Ghetto, 115, 125 
Giardmi Pubblici, 97, 173 
Grand Canal, 168 
Giudecca, 94, 125, 144, 168-175, 

187 
II Molo, 85, 92 
I Murazzi, 209, 214 
Islands of — 
Burano, 199 
Castello, 98 
La Grazia, 210 
Lazzaretto Vecchio, 21 1 
Murano, 187-198 



Islands — continued 
Olivolo, 98 
Poveglia, 211 
S. Clemente, 210, 211 
S. Elena, 185 
S. Francesco del Desert*, 

I3> 199. 207 
S. Giorgio Maggiore, 168, 

171, 172 
S. Lazzaro, 175, 177, 183 
S. Michele, 187, 189, 190 
S. Servolo, 177, 184, 185 
S. Spirito, 211 
Lagoon, 3, 201, 209 
Libreria Vecchia, 91, 92 
Lido, 169, 175-182 
Lions, 99 

Loggia of Sansovino, 89, 91 
Madonna del Or to, 116, 124 
Merceria, 105-109 
Museo Civico, 127, 155 
• Nuova Fabbrica, 86, 88 
Palazzo Bianca Capello, 95 
Corner Mocenigo, 130 
Falier, 117 
Fasetti, 68 
Giovanelli, 116, 121 
Labbia, 126, 141 
Loredan, 68 
Patriarchale, 93 
Sagredo, 1 18 
Soranzo, 130 
Trevisani, 95 
Urbino, I2i 
Vendramin, 116 
Ziani, 68, 71, 72 
Piazza di S. Marco, 84-93 
Piazzetta, the, 85, 91-93 
Piazzetta dei Leoni, 85, 93 
Ponte di Rialto, 105, 114, 13a 
Porto di Chioggia, 209 
di Lido, 178, 180 
Leone, 99 

di Malomocco, 178, 209 
Procuratie Vecchie, and Nuove, 86 
Rialto, 129 

Riva degli Schiavoni, 92, 95, 97 
Sacca della Misericordia, 1 18 
Scuola del Carmine, 141 
di S. Marco, 103 
di S. Rocco, 123, 124, 137- 

.139.153, 165 
di S. Teodoro, 44 



INDEX 



323 



Sestieri of, 94 

di Cannaregio, 94, II2, 116- 

126 
di Castello, 94-104 
di Dorsoduro, 127, 140-147 
di S. Croce, 94, 127-132 
di S. Marco, 105-115 
di S. Polo, 94, 127, 132-139 
Seminario Patriarchale, 147, 233 
Zattere, 144 
Zecca, 92 
Venice, Republic of— 

Contrasted with Florence, 151 
Crushes Genoa, 29-35 
Foundation of, 10-19, 221 
Her Byzantine and Italian 

periods, 38, 42 
Her capture of Constantinople 

29 
Her commercial importance, 25, 

46 
Her decay, 38-41 
Her division into sestieri^ 22 
Her independent position, 37 
Her libro d'Oro, 23, 76, 81 
Her mainland policy, 27, 33-37* 

222-226, 245-249 
Her maritime power, 19-21, 

25-32 
Her oligarchic government, 16, 

19-24, 69 
Her relations with Byzantium, 

15, 16, 18, 27-29, 37 
Her treaty with Liutprand, 16 
Patrons of, 14, 20, 43, 44 
Plague in, 144 170 
Sumptuary laws of, 202 
Venier, Doge Antonio, tomb of, 

104 
Venier, Doge Francesco, portrait 
of, 80 
Tomb of, III 
Venier, Doge Sebastiano, portrait 

of, 80 
Venier, Mois^, 115 
Vercelli, 261 
Verona, 3, 5, ii, 36 

Arena, 287, 295-297, 305 
As a Roman colony, 286, 287, 295 
Attila in, 221, 289 
Duomo, 302 

History of, 226. 237, 245, 261, 
275, 285-294 



Verona — continued 

Its relations witn Venice, 223, 
225, 248, 293, 294, 298 

Pinacoteca, 305 

Scaligers in, 33 

Sieges of, 8, 287-290 

S. Anastasia, 300, 301 

S. Eufemia, 303 

S. Fermo, 305 

S. Giorgio in Braida, 306 

S. Lorenzo, 303 

S. Maria Antica, 299 

SS. Nazaroand Celso, 306 

S. Toma, 297, 305 

S. Zeno, 303 
Veronese, Paolo, father of, 300 

His work in the Accademia, 149, 
163, 166 
in the Doge's Palace, 76, 78- 

83 
at Maser, 236 
in Padua, 263 
in Venetian churches, 98, 102, 

118, 121, 140, 141, 142, 166, 

193 
in Verona, 305 
in Vicenza, 282 
Tomb of, 141, 142 
Veronese, the, 2 
Verrochio, Andrea, his work in 

Venice, 103, 141 
Vespasian, Emperor, 287 
Vicenza, 5, 11, 237, 244, 274-283, 
292 
Attila overthrows, 36, 221, 

289 
Birthplace of Mantegna, 255 
Charm of, 274-278 
Covets Bassano, 238 
Loschi Collection, 235 
Relations with Venice, 36, 223, 

225, 248, 276 
Sights of, 277-283 
Vienna, 190 
Vigasio, battle of, 290 
Villani, Giovanni, on delta Scala, 

293 
On Ecelino da Romano, 237 

On the Paterani, 296 

Vincent, Sir Francis, 180 

Virgil, 5, 275 

Visconti, Bernabo, 294 

Visconti, Giovanni, 31 



324 



VENICE AND VENETIA 



Visconti, the, 223, 292 
In Verona, 294 

Power of, 34, 238, 245, 247, 276 
Vitruvius, 278, 281 
Vittoria, Alessandro, his work in 

Venice, 108, 134 
Vivarini, Alvise, his work in Venice, 
100, 104, 135, 158, 171, 190 
Pupils of, 158, 159, 162 
Vivarini, Antonio, his work in 

_ Venice, 97, 154 
Vivarini, Bartolommeo, his work in 
Venice, 100, 104, 112, 115, 

134, 135 
Vivarini, the, school of, 103, 156 
Voragine, on S. Mark, 44 

Waterloo, 92 

Wells Cathedral, 133 



Westminster Abbey, 133 
Windsor, 89 

Windsor, Baron, tomb of, 104 
Wren, Christopher, 278 

Zanelli, Abate Vincenzo, on Murano, 

191 
Zanetto, Bishop, tomb of, 227 
Zara, capture of, 29 

Peace of, 35, 246 
Zarotto, 235 
Zecchino, the, 92 
Zen, Cardinal, tomb of, 58, 65 
Zeno, Carlo, 32, 35 

Tomb of, 100 
Ziani, Doge Pietro, 102, 171 
Ziani, Doge Sebastiano, weds the 

sea, 68, 109, 181 
Ziani, Marco, 102 



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